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ALAC should be more selective in the amount of advice it seeks to offer, focusing on those issues which might have the greatest impact upon the end user community, and going for quality rather than quantity. ALAC should develop a more transparent process for distinguishing between different types of advice, and publish that advice on the At-Large website.

Quality vs quantity of ALAC advice produced.

Support

The ALAC already The ALAC currently focuses on quality vs quantity and does not as a rule only issue comments that the ALAC does not believe believes are important to ICANN and users. This has been a very conscious policy that has evolved over several years. The importance of this will be reinforced as new workers become involved in At-Large. The ALAC agrees that its web site does not always fully represent the diverse nature of its various statements and will work with staff to improve upon that.

The ALAC supports this recommendation and notes that this is effectively today’s status quo where RALOs make use of any opportunity that they can to carry out outreach within their vast regions covering multiple countries, cultures and languages. The ALAC and RALOs encourage greater ALAC Reply to At-Large Review Draft Report - 24 March 2017 6 coordination and collaboration with regional ICANN staff, as well as with other regional organisations, for more focused outreach. An outreach calendar for each RALO was specifically set up for At-Large Structures (ALSes) and regional staff to notify regional/global members of their events. ICANN should ensure that equitable opportunities are available and supported for regional end-users (ALS or individual) to make an impact from within their regions.

However, it must also be noted that the At-Large community has often found access to funding for outreach activities to be challenging. While the Community Regional Outreach Pilot Programme (CROPP) provides funding that specifically targets outreach, this is limited to five slots per region per year (providing funding for airfares and accommodation for four days and three nights, per slot). On the other hand, any mention of “outreach” in At-Large requests for funding through annual budget processes can make requests less likely to get approval, unless other capacity building or engagement elements are added. RALOs take advantage of non-ICANN regional events that offer fellowships and other sponsorships to enable their members to attend, or an ALS may fund their representative(s), or individuals fund themselves in order to fulfil the voluntary roles and contributions they already make on behalf of their regions. 

Records over the last five years demonstrate this.

While ALAC responses involving community input are usually quite comprehensive, a small proportion were simply supportive statements where the ALAC felt a nominal response was advisable but did not warrant any substantive effort. Similarly, advice to the Board composed just a small fraction (fewer than five such statements in the last several years) of the overall documents drafted. The ALAC believes it is far more desirable to influence the policy development processes before issues come to the Board, than to advise the Board after the fact when it may have little latitude to alter the outcome.

It has been the general practice of the ALAC, that when a public comment issue arises, the ALAC will identify a penholder who, often with others, is prepared to take responsibility for initially assessing if there is a significant user-impact reason for further investigation and community consultation. If this is the case, then the writing team collects and organises data to put together an appropriate advisory statement or comment for consideration and formal endorsement by the ALAC, before the response is returned to the relevant section of ICANN. This is a time-consuming process, inviting members from across At-Large each time, to contribute to the many different subject areas for which ALAC is tasked to research and provide appropriate advice. The ALAC also encourages RALOs and ALSes to comment.

The ALAC acknowledges that its web site does not always fully represent the diverse nature of its various statements. Ensuring that this does will be important as new workers become involved in At-Large.

Availability of Staff resources

Staff with input from At-Large Leadership.

Staff to identify areas of the website needing improvement to be reviewed by At-large Leadership prior to implementation