At-Large Workspace: Draft ICANN Africa Strategic Plan 2016-2020 Version 3.0

Public Comment Close	Statement Name	Status	Assignee(s)	Call for Comments Open	Call for Comments Close	Vote Open	Vote Close	Date of Submission	Staff Contact and Email	Statement Number
10 September 2018	Draft ICANN Africa Strategic Plan 2016-2020 Version 3.0	ADOPTED 13Y, 1A, 0N	Fatimata Seye Sylla	07 September 2018	10 September 2018	11 September 2018	14 September 2018	10 September 2018	Pierre Dandjinou queries.nairobiec@icann.org	AL-ALAC-ST-0910-01-01-EN

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Brief Overview

Purpose: On July 2, 2018; the Global Stakeholder Engagement (GSE) Africa team convened a select committee of Supporting Organization (SO) / Advisory Committee (AC) representatives from Africa to review the current Africa strategy. They came up with a draft reviewed document ICANN Africa Strategy Ver 3.0 2016 – 2020. This public comment proceeding is seeking further input from the community on the draft document in line with our commitment to inclusive bottom-up and multistakeholder approach.

Current Status: The Africa strategy was one of the first ever regional plans approved by ICANNorg. The strategy document itself is a living document and should be flexible enough to respond to the changing needs and prevailing circumstance of the community. Hence the need for this regular review and appraisal to ensure that ICANN Org, and indeed the Africa Strategy is responsive to the community in conformance to the overall Mission and remit of ICANNorganization (org.) The first review was done by the community in November 2014 and resulted in the current ICANN Africa Strategy Ver 2.0 2016 – 2020. ICANN has since undergone important transformations in the last 3 years such as the IANA stewardship transition (October 2016) that led to introduction of new ICANN Bylaws and created an Empowered Community of ICANN. It was therefore important to revisit the Africa Strategy to realign it to these new realities at ICANN org.

Next Steps: ICANN org. will consolidate the comments, generate an updated strategy document as per the comments and formally re-launch the reviewed ICANN – Africa Strategic Plan FY16 – FY20 at the upcoming ICANN63 meeting.

Section I: Description and Explanation

In June 2012, the African community had a historic meeting in Prague, Czech Republic (ICANN44) that was chaired by Steve Crocker (then chairman of ICANN Board), Fadi Chehade (ICANN’s incoming CEO at that time) and Moctar Yedaly from the African Union Commission. The outcome was a new approach to Africa that would focus on the following action lines:

Develop a framework for ICANN's Africa strategy
Support stronger presence for ICANN in Africa
Increase Africa's participation in ICANN

The Africa Strategy Working Group (ASWG) which was set up during the meeting came up with the Africa Strategy document (2012 - 2015) which was presented during ICANN45 in Toronto. The document has now become the cornerstone of ICANN’s engagement in Africa. Implementation of the strategy started in 2013, with the recruitment of the Vice President (VP) for Africa and with a few key flagship projects. The Africa team has now grown with further recruitment of two more managers.

The initial 3-year Africa Strategic Plan encompassed ICANN’s overall delivery in Africa, which boils down to capacity development in the DNS industry and business, capacitating African ccTLDs, securing the DNS system in Africa and equally importantly, deepening and broadening engagement with all stakeholders including governments, private sector, academia and civil society in Africa. In 2014, ICANN org. reviewed its global strategic plan to a new ICANN 2016 – 2020 Strategic plan focused on 5 key pillars / Strategic Objectives. This occasioned the first review of the Africa Strategy in November 2014 to align it to the ICANN overall strategy.

Section II: Background

On May 5, 2018, the Global Stakeholder Engagement (GSE) Africa team officially released the 5-Year implementation report of the ICANN Africa strategy in Dakar, Senegal in the sidelines of Africa Internet Summit (AIS) 2018. It has been five years since the first ICANN Africa Strategic Plan 2012 – 2015.

The strategy identified 8 strategic objectives, which were eventually, translated into more than a hundred projects to be rolled out in a period of three years. The overall goal of the strategy being a transformation of Africa into a contributor to the Internet and an emerging market for the domain name business and industry. In 2014, ICANN org. released a new strategic plan. It was therefore imperative that the Africa Strategy be aligned with the overall ICANN strategic focus. This necessitated the first review meeting convened by the GSE Africa team in in November 24-25, 2014.The result of the review meeting was the adoption of the current updated ICANN Africa Strategic plan Ver2.0 FY16 – 20.

Section III: Relevant Resources

Draft ICANN Africa Strategic Plan 2016-2020 Version 3.0 [PDF, 226 KB]

Section IV: Additional Information

Section V: Reports

FINAL VERSION SUBMITTED (IF RATIFIED)

The final version to be submitted, if the draft is ratified, will be placed here by upon completion of the vote.

FINAL DRAFT VERSION TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ALAC

The final draft version to be voted upon by the ALAC will be placed here before the vote is to begin.

10 September 2018

The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Draft ICANN Africa Strategic Plan 2016-2020 Version 3.0.

The main objective of the strategic plan is to strengthen the physical presence in Africa to conduct outreach and help reflect ICANN’s global image via the regionalization of core ICANN operations. However, the draft raises some concerns about the feasibility of this plan.

The ICANN regional office is understaffed to conduct the activities recommended in the draft: Only one staff member is in Nairobi.

Among the recommendations outlined, the most important cannot be implemented without human resources to promote local engagement and strengthen ICANN operations within Africa. An increased number of African ICANN staff has to be seriously considered, taking into account diversity and gender equity.

In addition, involving more African participation in strategy planning and subsequent implementation review would help increase the number of Africans able to undertake awareness campaigns in their local communities.

Capacity building at the local level should be supported by ICANN and the local private sector, which is currently not very active within ICANN.

African participation within ICANN constituencies should be strengthened. Africa is well represented within the At-Large community and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), but not within other SOs and ACs.

Finally, some recommendations in the strategy do not have a suggested path for implementation. For example:

4. Produce Targeted Documents in appropriate languages regarding ICANN operations (AU Languages)

5. Deploy & Support Anycast Instances in cooperation with regional organizations

There are no comments on how to implement; no indicators (p.11).

The African community within At-Large is willing to contribute to the definition of the implementation strategies of these recommendations.

DRAFT SUBMITTED FOR DISCUSSION

The first draft submitted will be placed here before the call for comments begins. The Draft should be preceded by the name of the person submitting the draft and the date/time. If, during the discussion, the draft is revised, the older version(S) should be left in place and the new version along with a header line identifying the drafter and date/time should be placed above the older version(s), separated by a Horizontal Rule (available + Insert More Content control).

06 September 2018