AFRALO Monthly meeting
Wednesday 9 January 2012 at 1830 UTC
Minutes of the meeting
1. Roll call: Staff
2. Review of the Public consultations
3. Reports
Recent and upcoming activities of ALAC
Yaovi reviewed the current activities.
Mentioned the SC and WG on capacity building within ALAC.
This WG is formed by Tijani and myself. This is a different WG from the ICANN Academy. There is a WG on the new gTLDs which is working which meets recently and this group is thinking about the actions, this group is going to have a survey to be able to to evaluate the reasons for participation.
Dev has sent a message on the objection process and which explains what the ALS can do in the process.
Tijani: The group will assess the applications.
We will have a webminar on WCIT.
The ALAC and At Large WG had different views. Explained the differences between the Academy is focused on the entire ICANN and the Working Group on capacity building.
Michele: Question on incorporation of capacity building in ICANN Academy.
We do not know when it will start working and how this is going to work, so what can we do in the meantime.
Reports on the WIKI:
We would like to encourage the members of AFRALO to report the activities of the ALS on the WIKI. This task has to be done. So when the CEO comes to the region, it can be seen.
The importance of ALS for ICANN worlwide.
Peter: ALS in every country is willing to work within the limits of resources. ICANN has to fashion out a way to get funding for activites in the country. We need the support of ICANN to fund activities.
4. Item for information:
1.- After Toronto we thought we needed something stronger. We need virtual capacity building for African ALS. We asked staff to create a WIKI and communitcate through the WIKI. We also have the training program from DAKAR. We are waiting for ALS and we really have no answer. We need to know what they need so that they can satisfy those needs. Until now we have no answers. So we will put a deadline.
Please those ALS who understand what is a stake please send your answer. You can do some proposals before the end of January. We are waiting for your participation.
I
Michelle: I would like to highlight the issue of capacity building and it is a very important experience and if we do not establish a deadline we will not move on.
Peter: Propose if we are having a meeting in South Africa,
Aziz: Commented we can ask people to give us the proposal instead of having people put the proposal into the WIKI.
Victor: We do not have rmany replies yet, I do not know why.
Drafting Groups on ALAC ROP (Yaovi) 5’
This group has 4 dub-groups and they have been meeting regularly. The goal is to have a next version of the draft by the next meeting.
At large new GTLD on objections.
The deadline to submit objections is the 16th of January.
We would like to know if the ALS will comment
Yaovi: AFRALO could perhaps make a statement.
Aziz: I would like to comment on what was said. My personal advice is that AFRALO represents the whole of Africa so we can side with one company or another. But this is a commercial decision between 2 companies, but I do not think we should side with either of them. I think we should not intervene here.
Victor: I think we should be neutral, everyone should participate.
It is a private matter of course, but it needs to be clear.
Personally I think that the ALS can do some comments and then the ALAC is going to analyze the comments. But this is on the ALS level. Every ALS can support and then AFRALO can say Okay we are presenting the comments. We have the right to do that as members.
I think that AFRALO needs to be outside, the ALS can comment but cannot mix everything.
The decision if it has to do with the African users, then we can take part, but in the case of a commercial question, we do not have to take a position here.
Aziz: AFRALO is not the responsible for giving his opinion, the ALS has to do it. We have to check the different tools. What are we waiting for?
Fatimata agrees with Aziz.
Peter : If there are issues that require AFRALO to take a stand then we need to do it in a democratic way and ask for the views of the ALS. AFRALO is not an entity in itself. If there are no ALS there is no AFRALO, there is no way that AFRALO can be neutral.
Aziz reminded all that the role of AFRALO is the participation of the internet world, but we do not have to take a position.
A person can do some objection, any entity can do it. If we take a decision we need to be very careful.
Michele agrees
AFRALO cannot as an entity present it. But as AFRALO chair, we cannot make a comment, the ALS can do it, as individuals.
AFRALO – AfrICANN joint meeting in Beijing (Fatimata) 10’
We are going to organize a meeting. We need to chose an item. Fatimata does not want to organize at the last minute
Yaovi: We have a Vice President for South Africa. Are we still meeting like before? or will this meeting be an opportunity to work with the Vice President?
