Participants: Tijani Ben Jemaa, Fatimata Seye Sylla, Ben Akoh
Apologies: Pierre Dandjinou
Staff: Anne-Rachel Inne, Gisella Gruber-White, Matthias Langenegger, Heidi Ullrich
Fatimata: Do we have a subject for the meeting in Cartagena? So far, we have participation and follow-up from Brussels as agenda items.
Tijani: We need to inform the African members about the work of the WG and, in particular, about recommendation 20. This is the follow-up from Brussels part.
How can we improve participation?
Secondly, we need to talk about participation. The African participation in ICANN is not strong enough. We need to have a discussion to get to the root of this problem.
Fatimata: This is mostly a capacity issue. We have proposed solutions which have not been implemented and it will be the same all over again. Again, we will say that we need resources to build capacities.
Tijani: The volunteers do not have sufficient resources. We need to train them to ensure that they are able to contribute independently.
Ben: I think we need to channel this through an organisation, a network perhaps. Kitkanet is a loose network in Kenya. They are volunteers but we found ways for them to engage. They need to feel committed to the institution in order to engage. Anne-Rachel, perhabs we can learn from your experiences to improve outreach.
Tijani: I do not think you should be paid to participate in ICANN's policy processes.
Anne-Rachel: one of ICANN's problems is that it is very difficult to find good Board members with no compensation. Some have looked at participation in the WGs and it is sometimes difficult to see that there is any real policy discussion. Why? Because people have day jobs and no resources available to participate.
Ben: I think participation will drop even further. For example, I participate in many international policy development processes and this is difficult with no compensation.
Anne-Rache: Should we have a discussion on this in Cartagena? Should we look at how some other organisations deal with volunteer capacity? For example, the African Union might be interesed in sending some representatives to the GAC during ICANN meeting.
Tijani: This should be part of the discussions in Cartagena. Now we need to discuss how we will prepare this.
1. We have agreed on the topics (Participation mechanisms and Follow-up on new gTLDs since Brussels)
2. How do we prepare for that?
Tijani: I suggest that we invite one or both of the co-Chairs of the JAS working group. I would like them to see what we are doing. Evan Leibovitch and Avri Doria are the co-Chairs. With regards to participation, we should invite the ICANN staff responsible for participation. Mandy Carver and Anne-Rachel could join us.
Anne-Rachel: I will not be going to Cartagena.
Tijani: With regards to speakers, I propose the JAS WG co-Chairs and a staff person to speak on participation.
AI: Staff will ask Filiz Yilmaz whether she would be available to join the meeting in Cartagena.
AI: Tijani will contact Evan and Avri and ask them to give a presenation on the the JAS WG recommendations.
AI: Tijani will ask Dave, Aziz and Yaovi to help him with the draft statement for the AfrICANN-AFRALO meeting.
Tijani: we need to form a WG to draft the outcome paper of the AfrICANN-AFRALO event.
AI: Tijani will send an email to the AfrICANN and AFRALO lists with a summary of this call and ask for help on the draft statement for the AFRALO-AfrICANN meeting in Cartagena.
Fatimata and Dave were suggested as the moderator and rapporteur for the meeting respectively.
The next AfrICANN-AFRALO call will be scheduled based on the feedback on Tijani's email to the AfrICANN list.
The next call with be on 25 November.
