AT-LARGE GATEWAY

At-Large Website

ALAC

RALOs

At-Large Regional Policy Engagement Program (ARPEP)

At-Large Governance

At-Large Reports

Policy Comments & Advice

Working Groups

ICANN Meetings

At-Large Summit (ATLAS III)

At-Large Review Implementation Plan Development

ALAC and RALO Elections, Selections, and Appointments

At-Large Priority Activities - 2021

You are viewing an old version of this page. View the current version.

Compare with Current View Page History

« Previous Version 11 Next »

Public Comment CloseStatement
Name 

Status

Assignee(s)

Call for
Comments Open		Call for
Comments
Close 		Vote OpenVote CloseDate of SubmissionStaff Contact and EmailStatement Number


14 January 2018


Enhancing Accountability - Recommendations for Diversity


COMMENT


Yrjo Lansipuro

Bastiaan Goslings

Judith Hellerstein

Beran Dondeh Gillen


14 December 2017


21 December 2017


02 January 2018


08 January 2018


02 January 2018


Patrick Dodson
patrick.dodson@icann.org


Hide the information below, please click here 


Brief Overview

Purpose:

This Public Comment seeks community input on the CCWG-Accountability Work Stream 2 (WS2) draft recommendations to Improve Diversity. These draft recommendations were developed by the CCWG-Accountability as required by Annex 12 of the final report of the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability, Work Stream 1 (CCWG-Accountability, WS1).

Current Status:

The CCWG-Accountability reviewed these draft recommendations at its 27 September and 11 October 2017 plenary meetings and approved their publication to gather public comments.

Note: Implementation of Diversity within ICANN – During discussions it emerged that a majority of the members of the diversity sub-group agreed that the implementation of the recommendations should be left to the ICANN organization to determine appropriate mechanisms and structures. A number of CCWG-Accountability-WS2 diversity sub-group members thought this insufficient and believe it is essential to establish an Office of Diversity. The role of this office would be to independently support, record and keep track of issues including complaints from the community on diversity issues within the organization. The proposed office being a very specific structural adjustment to the organization it did not receive consensus from either the diversity group or the CCWG plenary.  However further input and comments on this matter from the wider community is welcomed.

Next Steps:

Following the public comment period the inputs will be analyzed by the CCWG-Accountability WS2 who will consider amending the recommendations in light of the comments received and will publish a report on the results of the public consultation. If significant changes are required as a result of the public consultation the CCWG-Accountability WS2 may decide to not include these recommendations in its final report given it must complete its work by June 2018. If there are no significant changes required, the CCWG-Accountability WS2 will include these in its final report and forward it to its Chartering Organizations for approval and then to the ICANN Board for consideration and adoption.

Section I: Description and Explanation

The CCWG-Accountability-WS2 Diversity project obtains its mandate and scope from ICANNbylaws and the CCWG-Accountability, WS1 Final report which included Recommendation 12 the following:

As part of Work Stream 2, the CCWG-Accountability proposes that further enhancements be made to a number of designated mechanisms:

  • Considering improvements to ICANN's standards for diversity at all levels.

Annex 12, which details Recommendation 12, also included the following recommendations with regards to diversity:

Comments received on the Second Draft Proposal revealed that incorporating the diversity component into Accountability and Transparency reviews may overburden Review Teams. Therefore, the CCWG-Accountability recommends the following actions with the view to further enhancing ICANN's effectiveness in promoting diversity:

  • Including diversity as an important element for the creation of any new structure, such as the Independent Review Process (IRP) (for diversity requirements for the panel) and the ICANN Community Forum.
  • Adding Accountability, Transparency, and Diversity reviews of SOs and ACs to structural reviews as part of Work Stream 2.
  • Performing, as part of Work Stream 2, a more detailed review to establish a full inventory of the existing mechanisms related to diversity for each and every ICANNgroup (including Stakeholder Groups, Constituencies, Regional At-Large Organizations, the Fellowship program, and other ICANN outreach programs). After an initial review of the current documents, it became clear that they do not address the full concerns raised by the wider community on the issue of diversity.
  • Identifying the possible structures that could follow, promote, and support the strengthening of diversity within ICANN.
  • Carrying out a detailed working plan on enhancing ICANN diversity as part of Work Stream 2.
  • Strengthening commitments to outreach and engagement in order to create a more diverse pool of ICANN participants, so that diversity is better reflected in the overall community and thus more naturally reflected in ICANN structures and leadership positions.

Section II: Background

The Diversity sub-group focused on requirements 3, 4 and 5 for its work. This report presents a discussion of diversity at ICANN and identifies a number of diversity elements by which diversity may be characterized, measured and reported.  It provides a summary of diversity provisions in the new ICANN Bylaws, and is informed by feedback from ICANN Supporting Organization(SO)/Advisory Committee (AC)/groups through a Diversity Questionnaire. Finally, it proposes a number of recommendations by which ICANN may define, measure, report, support and promote diversity.

Section III: Relevant Resources



Section IV: Additional Information

Section V: Reports

Staff Contact

Patrick Dodson
patrick.dodson@icann.org

FINAL VERSION TO BE 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.


While supporting the recommendations for enhancing diversity as a whole, we want to focus on one of the seven elements of diversity identified by WS 2, viz. Language.

 

It is a laudable goal that “all languages should be possible to be represented in ICANN for the organization  to position itself as a fully global multi-stakeholder entity”.   However, this is not achieved by improving the balance among the six official UN languages or even by occasionally adding a few other languages. Many important languages and billions of people are still left out.

 

Because it is not possible to cater for the wide diversity of languages, at least people who are not fluent English speakers should understand the English used as the working language of ICANN in.  This is why efforts to improve the quality of ICANN documents and presentation in order to enable informed, inclusive and meaningful participation[1] are important also from diversity point of view.

 

In order to communicate with a diverse community, it is necessary to explore other ways and means to bridge cultural and language barriers (in addition to translations), e.g. info graphic, animations, videos that are langue-neutral or which can be localized by communities in their own cultural contexts. Info graphic and pictures need to be accurately described in the meta tags or text attached to the picture so screen readers that are used by the visually impaired can understand and describe the picture. Otherwise they will not be able to see it and understand.

 

Captioning is particularly useful tool to help people whose native language is not English and for those with disabilities. It would also help those whose remote participation at ICANN events is hampered by low bandwidth in areas where they live. The use of captioning should be extended to all groups and constituencies who want it, and efforts should be made to improve its accuracy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


[1] https://gac.icann.org/file-asset/public/gac-alac%20joint%20statement%20-%2002%20nov%202017.pdf

 

FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED

The first draft submitted will be placed here before the call for comments begins.


While supporting the recommendations for enhancing diversity as a whole, we want to focus on one of the seven elements of diversity identified by WS 2, viz. Language.

 

It is a laudable goal that “all languages should be possible to be represented in ICANN for the organization  to position itself as a fully global multi-stakeholder entity”.   However, this is not achieved by improving the balance among the six official UN languages or even by occasionally adding a few other languages. Many important languages and billions of people are still left out.

 

For speakers of languages other than the official UN ones , working language for practical purposes will be English.  Thus, the use of maximally understandable English in documents and oral presentations, along the lines of  the joint ALAC/GAC statement from 2 November, 2017, would be of crucial importance also from the diversity point of view. (Yrjö Länsipuro)

  • No labels