Statement- PDF document
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ENGLISH
We, African ICANN Community members participating in the ICANN 56th International Public Meeting in Helsinki and attending the joint AFRALO / AfrICANN meeting on Wednesday 29th June 2016, discussed the implementation of the final proposals of the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) and the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG).
We first want to salute the entire Internet community for the huge amount of work completed in such short time towards developing the various proposals. We also commend the ICANN board for performing its role by endorsing and forwarding the proposals to the NTIA. We are pleased with the NTIA ’s positive assessment of those proposals, which gives the process the green light to proceed with the rest of US Government approvals.
Nevertheless, we have some remarks to make about the implementation of the proposals and beyond:
- The African Internet Community within ICANN and the African Regional At-Large Organization (AFRALO) would like to encourage the US government to not relent in performing its role in this process, which would result in the removal of the historical stewardship role of the NTIA. We believe any attempt to block or further delay the transition process should be discouraged as its completion will strengthen the Multistakeholder Model of Internet Governance and will “hopefully” prevent future proposals for government led management of the Internet ’s IANA critical functions. When accomplished properly and in a timely manner, the transition will present then USA in good light.
We commend the work of the Implementation Oversight Task Force (IOTF) that has been overseeing the implementation of the CCWG and ICG proposals. We have been following the work of that group and like to reiterate that the group should remain
focused on ensuring that implementation is in line with the various proposals.
We would like to emphasize that the CWG proposal requires the establishment of the Post Transition IANA (PTI) as a subsidiary of ICANN. Given it is our expectation that the PTI, which will take care of all services related to the IANA function, should have its own budget and its own staff to independently, provide the best service to the direct customers of the IANA function.
As the CCWG kicks off plans for Work Stream 2, we like to reiterate our previous comment that Work Stream 1 was developed at a pace beyond average. This has made it difficult for some volunteers to follow up with the process; hence, it may
have reduced the level of diversity of views in the development of the proposal. In view of this, we recommend that adequate and flexible time be provided for the development of Work Stream 2.
Finally, we would like to reiterate our support of all the work done towards the transition of the U.S. government stewardship role with regard to the IANA functions and related root zone management to the global community, and of progress made so far.
We also encourage everyone involved to continue to perform their part in a manner that does not stall the transition process. Let us all work together to keep the One Internet as we know it for the future generations.
