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The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), on behalf of the At-Large Community community consisting of five Regional At-Large Organizations (RALOs) grouping more than 125 At-Large Structures (ALSes) worldwide, welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Framework for the FY12 Operating Plan and Budget.

Especially welcomed are the continuing improvements to the process which this year sees the introduction of a new template to be filled and included with every proposed project. Our thanks go to Kevin Wilson, Akram Atallah and Juan Ojeda in explaining the new procedures and spending significant time both on conference calls with ALAC but also with our RALO communities, as well as in meetings taking place during the ICANN AGM in Cartagena, Colombia.

The present This submission by ALAC has been guided by the information gathered at those numerous meetings. Its input process has been extensively discussed at all levels, from ALS to RALO leadership, RALO to ALAC and ALAC to ALAC Executive Committee. It reflects the needs of the At-Large community whilst following the essential guidelines that:

• any project needs to link to a Strategic ICANN objective, either supporting it, or being directly related to it as a consequence of being linked to the Affirmation of Commitments, and
• Any project needs to show quantifiable benefits which can be assessed after its conclusion.

Process

In line with a key strategic goal in At-Large, to implement a complete bottom-up input process, the bulk of the input to this document comes from extensive work performed at the RALO level. The ALAC has strived to perform the function of information collation, ordering into broad lines of similar project types, whilst taking care of not performing any kind of top-down filtering. We believe that grass-root input is key to our process because it warrants the need for ICANN to act locally, in line with:

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In collating project proposals, we have also paid particular attention to the Accountability and Transparency Review Team’s (ATRT) Final Recommendations. We believe that there is full agreement with its findings and that some of the projects proposed by our RALOs stem directly from the aim to improve ICANN’s accountability and transparency.

Order

The variety of projects proposed by RALOs is impressive. With each region having developed its plan separately from the other regions, it was surprising to see the commonality that existed in between regions.

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• APRALO recommends a presence at regional Asia-Pacific IGFs and AP* Events, including representation by APRALO officers, secretariat or volunteers.
• AFRALO suggests attendance at the forthcoming IGF in Nairobi. In 2010, it organized a very successful workshop at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2010 in Vilnius with no funding whatsoever from ICANN. The workshop was very well attended, even by senior ICANN staff. In light of the benefit to ICANN’s image and considering its success it is unfair to expect volunteers and ALSes to sustain a repeat proposal without funding in FY11/12. The organizing of a workshop which is part of the core IGF schedule has the potential to raise APRALO’s profile, and through this, ICANN’s profile in a considerable manner.
• EURALO proposes a presence of up to five (5) of its members at the European Dialogue for Internet Governance, EURODIG 2012 (FY11/12 or FY12/13), Europe’s premier Internet Governance yearly conference, organized by the Council of Europe and many partners, several of which are ALSes.
• LACRALO recommends involvement at LACNIC and LACTLD meetings, a representation by LACRALO president, secretariat and two (2) ALAC members. A sustained involvement with these organizations directly supports ICANN’s strategy of regional engagement and strategic alliances
• NARALO supports a sustained presence at several regional meetings including:

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