[LAC-Discuss] FW: [ALAC-Announce] FW: Follow-up to conference call on travel support

Wed Sep 3 09:12:54 EDT 2008

Dear Colleagues:
See this communiqué from Denise Michel, Head of policy development in ICANN.
We will ask for an official Spanish translation for fuller understanding.

Kind regards,
Carlton Samuels
LACRALO Secretariat

-----Original Message-----
From: alac-announce-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org
[mailto:alac-announce-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of At-Large
Staff
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 07:24 AM
To: alac-announce at atlarge-lists.icann.org
Subject: [ALAC-Announce] FW: Follow-up to conference call on travel support

In view of the importance of this announcement, we thought it would be
useful to post it to the Announcements list. Apologies for crossposting.
------ Forwarded Message
From: Denise Michel <denise.michel at icann.org>
Reply-To: At-Large Worldwide <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:50:33 -0700
To: At-Large Worldwide <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Subject: [At-Large] Follow-up to conference call on travel support

Dear At-Large Community Members:

We would like to thank those of you who shared your views with us last week
on the conference call on the new community travel procedure, as well as
those who have shared their perspectives online. We know that every time you
engage with ICANN, you are doing so as a volunteer, which makes the
contribution all the more valuable.

We understand there is concern that the ICANN Board, community and Staff
does not grasp the participation requirements of At-Large, and that At-Large
believes similar funding of travel for various communities is not an
equitable approach.  Specifically, that ICANN travel funding should be based
on equalising the opportunity for participation across stakeholder groups in
proportion to their need.

Our goal is support a travel funding approach that the ICANN community deems
appropriate to lower the barrier to participation, broaden the group of
ICANN participants and advance the "work" of ICANN.  We acknowledge that
there are many differences of opinion on the meaning of "appropriate," and
are committed to continuing this dialogue and reviewing  and if necessary
revising  the travel procedures for FY 2010.

We also are striving to ensure that At-Large (and all other stakeholder
participants in ICANN's work) has the necessary tools and resources to
support your work on ICANN issues.  At-Large is a highly valued member of
the ICANN community, and we want to make sure your continued productivity is
supported.
It is for these reasons that ICANN has always dedicated considerable
resources to At-Large, including:

1.    A tripling of staff resources dedicated to At-Large in the past year;
2.    Substantial year-on-year increases in funding dedicated to At-Large;
3.    A significant amount of extra resources in this fiscal year and the
last for translation and interpretation  driven in large part by At-Large's
needs;
4.    Continuing development of your online participation mechanisms  for
example, the website at http://atlarge.icann.org is the most technically
advanced in ICANN, the most multilingual, and will be the first site to
support direct contributions of content from the community  and it is being
continually enhanced.

We could go on about this subject, but we trust you are aware of these and
other efforts to increase your ability to participate as you are
experiencing the benefits of them directly.  We continue to look for more
and better ways to ensure that the individual Internet user is represented
in decisions affecting them, and we value your ongoing guidance and
commitment to this endeavour, which is a fundamental part of the ICANN
model.

Of course, other communities are essential too. Other communities have said
that they need support to attend ICANN meetings for the same reason that you
have stated  because the meetings are an important part of the ICANN
process and some of their members cannot afford to attend.  ICANN cannot
provide travel support for all communities at the level of funding all of
their members consider ideal.  Budgetary realities require compromises to be
made.

However, we would like to propose the following ideas as a way not just to
address the level of travel support for At-Large, but to go beyond that and
deal with some of the underlying issues you have raised.

What we propose is the following:
*
1.    We will work with the community throughout this fiscal year to review
the provisions of the travel procedure as they affect At-Large, especially
participation of the RALOs.  It would useful to have an At-Large proposed
plan completed at the At-Large Summit in Mexico City to factor the
community's needs into the year-end review of the community travel procedure
and related FY2009-2010 budget process.  *We understand your point that the
current travel procedure, if applied to At-Large in the next fiscal year,
does not take into sufficient account the needs of the RALOs to be able to
participate at face-to-face meetings. In particular, from the time spent
with you on an interpreted teleconference where a sizable portion of the
participants were speaking Spanish, we understand that At-Large is the
community which has the greatest needs for translation and interpretation
support at this time, and that until reliable remote participation that
facilitates multilingual participation is available for face-to-face
meetings, face-to-face attendance is more important than it would otherwise
be. We also understand your view that even English-speaking RALO
participants benefit from face-to-face interaction. Indeed, the purpose of
the travel procedure is to expand participation at face-to-face meetings
because we understand how valuable these opportunities are. Of course, the
whole ICANN community will get the opportunity to review the travel
procedure at the end of this fiscal year, along with ICANN's strategic and
operational plans and budget.  These consultations offer important
opportunities for discussion and input on a range of issues that may relate
to RALOs (besides travel) including translation and interpretation, ICANN
regional meetings, etc.  We encourage you to discuss your needs with the
other communities as well.

2.    *We will recommend that the eligibility of various communities for
participation in the Fellowship Program be reviewed in light of the new
community travel procedure. * It may be appropriate to update this program
after we evaluate the effect of the shared goals and support provided
through both the travel procedures and the Fellowship Program. Up to now,
this program has excluded At-Large from participating since At-Large travel
has been funded separately, and it has targeted members of the ccNSO and
Government Advisory Committee from eligible countries for priority support.
The ccNSO now receives some support under the travel procedures and GAC will
be considered for inclusion in the travel procedures for the next fiscal
year.  It seems to us that the changes being made to travel for various
communities makes this step a sensible one.

3.    *GNSO Improvement initiatives offer opportunities to improve support
for At-Large, as well. * As part of the GNSO Improvements work recently
approved by the Board, a number of initiatives will be undertaken to:

a.    Review and improve the tools, processes, procedures, and GNSO
constituency support mechanisms;
b.    Design and implement a global recruitment effort to increase
participation in all GNSO constituencies.

This work will include a dialogue with constituencies about how to achieve
this and should take into account the different consultation and
collaboration needs of our global communities to advance policy-development.

Given the integral role At-Large plays in policy development, we would like
to explore ways to involve At-Large in this dialogue and planning, and
extend the results to At-Large, as appropriate.

4.    *To ensure that the progress made by the regional Secretariats in
creating structures and processes for working together and with the ALAC
continues, ICANN will provide travel support for the Secretariats for the
ICANN Cairo meeting and the final (June 2009) ICANN meeting for this fiscal
year. * The regional Secretariats will be funded on the same basis as they
were in the last fiscal year. We understand the value of having a periodic
opportunity for regional leaders and ALAC members to meet face-to-face, and
recognize that the whole community has benefited from the Secretariats'
attendance at ICANN meetings.

We hope that you will look at these proposals and see in them a way not just
to deal with the issue of face-to-face attendance at ICANN meetings, but as
a way to go beyond that to advance At-Large involvement overall.

We look forward to hearing from you, and working with you further.

Regards,
Doug Brent, COO
Denise Michel, VP Policy

------ End of Forwarded Message

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