Speaking more broadly than simply the ICANN accountability process, I 
think some expertise is missing at ICANN.  Their response lately has 
been to hire folks to fill that gap.  I am thinking of the following 
areas where I do not frankly see great expertise or concentrated focus 
on deliverables either in the staff or stakeholders:

  * holistic risk management ( I am not talking about security, or
    business risk)
  * privacy implementation
  * values and ethics
  * public policy
  * accountability and external audit and review

I think green papers are great, but it is how we get there that counts.  
If the board selects a bunch of experts to do a green paper, the same 
way they selected a bunch of experts to do the Whois replacement (ie. 
the Experts Working Group on directory services for the new gTLDs, on 
which I just served) I am not sure we gain much in transparency and 
participation.  So we need a process whereby the multistakeholder 
*community* decides we need help, and either does an open call for 
potential responders, or reaches agreement in the working group.  This 
basic accountability and adherence to a multi-stakeholder model appears 
to be falling apart on various fronts.
On a more cheerful note, it is very heartening that the stakeholder 
groups are working together more, and not at cross purposes.  I am 
confident, given the tremendous and varied expertise across the groups, 
that a cross-community working group could come up with proposals for 
expert papers on the matters I listed above.  We of course would have to 
weigh in to make sure the experts were not weighted in one direction or 
the other, but it could work.  I agree whole heartedly with your 
conclusion, Seun, the members can do it better.
Cheers
Stephanie Perrin

On 2014-08-27, 11:25, Seun Ojedeji wrote:
>
> Honestly I am yet to understand why an external "expert" should be 
> required in the first place and there are 2 reasons for this:
> - ICANN fix is from inside: The folks who knows ICANN more are the 
> ICANN community itself or rather I should say they are the second set 
> of people (because it's expected that the staff is first but that is  
> irrelevant since this process is largely checking on them). So if 
> there is going to be a realistic accountability, more of the role 
> should rely on the community.
> - Who are the experts: That word can be relative because I don't see 
> how much experience non-icann participating individual will have to 
> make him/her an expert. The accountability process is not audit review 
> where there is a general template/rule that works on different 
> organization. It's rather a process that improves the strength of an 
> organisation and it's the organisation members that can do that better.
>
> Cheers!
>
> sent from Google nexus 4
> kindly excuse brevity and typos.
>
> On 27 Aug 2014 15:33, "Sam Lanfranco" <[log in to unmask] 
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
>     The Role of Experts in ICANN deliberations:
>
>     This issue is churning away in the background of various
>     discussions so here is a contribution to thinking about how to
>     handle it.
>
>     There are two areas of concern with regard to the role of experts
>     in ICANN deliberations. The first, of course, is the selection of
>     appropriate experts for the issue/task at hand. As everyone
>     involved in policy and project implementation knows, knowledge and
>     expertise only have meaning in context, and excellent credentials
>     applied to the wrong task produces a double risk. The advice will
>     be out of context, and there is the risk of legitimating the
>     advice based on the credentials of the expert, rather than on the
>     suitability of the advice to the context. In fact, this is always
>     a problem, no matter how the expert selection process is
>     undertaken and by whom.
>
>     This leads to the second concern, and one that is present in ICANN
>     deliberations. That is once the expert opinion is tabled it is
>     given undue weight in decision making independent of its actual
>     relevance and strengths. This has happened with some of the
>     content of recently retained ICANN expert panels, in particular
>     the one on enhanced multistakeholder engagement.
>
>     There is a long standing tried and true protection against the
>     risks associated with both of these concerns. The British call it
>     the Green Paper process, and it would be simple to incorporate it
>     into ICANN’s use of retained expertise to assist in decision
>     making. It is very much like the terms of reference currently
>     being used for the IANA stewardship coordination group. An agreed
>     upon simple statement could be a mandatory part of the charter, or
>     terms of reference, for any expert group convened within ICANN.
>     Something like:
>
>     *This expert group will identify issues and options, and may
>     suggest recommendations for policy or implementation, to be used
>     as input into the subsequent multistakeholder dialogue and
>     multistakeholder recommendations for action. *
>
>     While there will still be differences of opinion as to who should
>     be retained as experts, such a process reduces the critical role
>     of expert selection in the ultimate policy decisions, and allows
>     the stakeholder groups to insure that subsequent use of advice is
>     based on the relevance of the advice to the issues at hand. It
>     focuses on usable outputs and not expert credentials, and
>     minimizes the extent to which decision making can selectively pick
>     elements of the advice based on self-interest.
>
>     Sam L.
>