Regional Comments on the Strategic Plan Related to the FY12 Budget
(The text below is provided to assist the development of RALO FY12 Budget requests.)

Regional Comments/Submissions to the FY12 Budget                                                    

AFRALO

Healthy Internet eco-system 
AFRALO agrees that continued internationalisation of ICANN is crucial to maintaining a single, global interoperable Internet and a single Internet zone file used globally.

AFRALO takes positive note that ICANN will formalize a cross-stakeholder model, and will also formalize input from the At-Large community into Board discussion.

While recognizing the ICANN effort for a multilingual working environment, AFRALO considers that for an international organization, more commitment is needed to provide translation of all  ICANN documents, and simultaneous interpretation in all meetings (face to face or remote). This interpretation is urgently needed for the fellowship program which is now restricted to the English speakers only.  

AFRALO highly appreciates the commitment to provide Internet governance education to an expanding group of international participants and to promote programs that enhance global participation. The AFRALO ALSes really need this kind of education, coupled with more training on ICANN related issues at local, national, sub-regional and regional levels to reach an effective participation in ICANN policy development process.
 
ICANN participation in Internet Governance events such as IGF and WSIS forum is of high importance. AFRALO thinks that this participation shouldn’t be limited to nice formal speeches, or an ICANN parallel event, but needs to be more effective by organizing substantial workshops addressing actual subjects and involving the large population of the forum. Such participation will give ICANN more visibility and better credibility. The impact of the so-called substantial workshops will be greater if they are organized by ICANN constituencies rather than the ICANN staff and/or Board.                                                                                                                                         

APRALO

APRALO believe that individual users community has been developing in the multi-stakeholder, internationalized and diversified environment and its influence can be felt in a couple of policy-making processes. But comparing with the private sector and governments, users community has still great potential for building a more healthy eco-system in ICANN. ICANN may wish to take systematic measures, including budget planning, to facilitate the participation of user community.
APRALO believes that ICANN should enhance its participation in pertinent global fora, such as IGF and WSIS, while coordinating with its community more closely and effectively in this regard.

EURALO

Comment submitted by Wolf Ludwig:
EURALO repeatedly discussed and broadly reaffirmed that there must be one F2F GA a year to promote its community development and to encourage its members for active participation in ICANN's policy development. Like the years before, EURALO will submit a proposal to the ICANN budget process to ask for travel funding for the next EURALO meeting (GA) which will be held in conjunction with the ICANN European meeting 2012.

Comment by EURALO:
A first step to outreach is the fellowship programme as well as the provision of on-line workshops and material to educate community leaders and participants about ICANN. This is a key brick in the building of stable international relationships and an efficient bottom-up decision process.

LACRALO

A healthy Internet eco-system
LACRALO is pleased to see the inclusion of “enhanced translation strategy” listed under staff work. The translation of key policy documents, briefing materials, presentations and transcripts; is critical to stakeholder diversity, increased multi-stakeholder participation and wider international engagement as listed in the draft Strategic Plan.  

No doubt there is general consensus regarding the benefits of increased document translations for the community to participate more effectively.
We acknowledge the hard work done by the new translators group led by Christina Rodriguez (ICANN staff). Due to technical and specific vocabulary used in our meetings it is of utmost importance to maintain a stable team of translators. In the past we have had to postpone teleconferences because it was impossible to understand the translator.

We must continue investing efforts in this regard to further enhance the worldwide end-user community input into ICANN.

We agree with AFRALO that funding should be increased for the translation of documents and simultaneous interpretation in all meetings, including the fellowship program.

Further, the number of Languages should be increased, not only to improve Brazilian Portuguese native speakers in the region but also to other languages such as Chinese, Russian, Arabic, etc.

We believe there is general consensus among the representatives of the RALOs for the need for annual GA for each RALO. There is widespread evidence that a few days of F2F interaction gets matters completed in a significantly shorter time frame than via online communication.

We must assess the cost vs benefits for members of the community, ICANN Staff and other stakeholders and explore financing to hold an Annual GA per Region. If the GA coincides with an ICANN meeting funding can be shared.

In the last fiscal year, ICANN modified its interpretation for “support to the RALOs”. During the signature of MOUs between ICANN and the RALOs, the was no doubt about the commitment of support (or at least an impression of such was made) for the RALOs including financial assistance to ensure a GA (apart from translations and interpretations).  
 
In the same vein of  AFRALO, we agree there is a need for greater ICANN initiatives to encourage workshop participation in the context of popular participation, governance and the Internet. ALAC is best suited to spearhead this.

Further, we need a regional approach and an inreach/outreach program for the propagation of knowledge in the Internet community and beyond.

NARALO

7. Initiation of policy development in reference languages other than  English.