On November 16, 2011 at 7:46 AM Rafik Dammak wrote:
“there is fellowship program already, the problem as mentioned by Amr is the selection, it is disguised way to fund some GAC rep and people from ccTLD to attend the meeting with the rest of few seats for regulators, academic etc but nothing for civil society per se, it will be important to push for fair selection there ( and ask to add more member in the selection committee which is currently small).”
I didn’t mean to suggest a problem with the selection process of the ICANN Fellowship Program (although there very well might be). I personally believe that it is a great program, and that the ICANN community is a richer and more diverse one as a result of it. I do believe that the program can be improved, and that it is actually constantly improving. For example; the addition of a “mentor” for each fellow according to his/her wishes regarding which AC/SO/SG the fellow would like his/her mentor to be from to help wean fellows into the parts of the community they feel they belong. Avri was mine at the San Francisco meeting, and I’m grateful to her and the program for the time and assistance she gave me. If anything, I was suggesting that the BC is probably not benefitting from the program due to an apparent lack of interest from the business sectors of developing countries. That is not the case for non-commercial though. There are always Fellows representing civil society at ICANN meetings. We should not miss out on introducing NCUC and NCSG to them especially since there is an obvious desire amongst NCSG members to engage more with potential members from developing countries.
Could the reason that the BC is seeking to promote the proposal of the “Special Project” be that they themselves have noticed poor representation of business interests amongst Fellowship participants? I don’t know. I agree with Bill that this is worth looking into. Marilyn mentioned in her email that each “constituency” would still have to submit their own budget request and each will be approved individually, so if we do decide to participate in submitting this proposal, we can do so in a manner that we see fit as a SG??
“yes NCSG members meet with the fellows, I think that Mary made presentation last time in Dakar.”
That’s great. Thanks to Mary for taking the time to be there. I urge NCUC members attending meetings to coordinate meeting the Fellows with Janice Lange. It’s not a difficult process to arrange this, and Fellowship morning meetings do not conflict with other meetings during the day as they start at 7:30am. Attendees even get a free breakfast as a bonus! J
Thanks.
Amr
From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of rafik dammak
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 7:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [NCSG-Discuss] Initial Draft Proposal regarding standard Project Funding to Constituencies/SGs
hello,
there is fellowship program already, the problem as mentioned by Amr is the selection, it is disguised way to fund some GAC rep and people from ccTLD to attend the meeting with the rest of few seats for regulators, academic etc but nothing for civil society per se, it will be important to push for fair selection there ( and ask to add more member in the selection committee which is currently small).
there were several recommendations from the OSC CSG WT (sorry for the acronym) where Debbie and me participated, regarding toolkit AN outreach effort. the toolkit is overdue and should help for administrative, secretariat stuff. Outreach effort is still at the beginning stage and we have motion at gnso council about the outreach taskforce. for those we need to push for implementing the recommendations. they are already over-over due.
I think the proposal is mostly about travel funding and the number looked familiar (found here http://www.icann.org/en/financials/so-ac-sg-requests-summary-fy12-09aug11-en.pdf , I couldn't unfortunately find the document with the all requests, it is quite instructing...) for me as some icann structures asked the same amount for different projects.
@Bill and yes it is peanuts if you compare to what other request , but addition all these peanuts and it will be somehow caviar :D
Best,
Rafik
On Nov 16, 2011, at 6:50 AM, Joy Liddicoat wrote:
Hi all – I support this idea in principle, particularly to support sustainable engagement or outreach in developing countries. I would rather see domain name fee registration funds devolved back to these kinds of engagement activities with NCSG input into their application for specific sector-supporting activities. In the draft proposal itself, given the rationale for the proposal in the first couple of pages, I was not expecting to see a focus on secretariat and administrative related activities. I’d prefer to see more focus in the proposed categories of support on capacity building and network development (whether through fellowships or other). Like Amr, I’d also be interested in how the 25k figure was derived.
Joy
From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robin Gross
Sent: Wednesday, 16 November 2011 3:19 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fwd: Initial Draft Proposal regarding standard Project Funding to Constituencies/SGs
Dear All,
There is a draft proposal from the CSG regarding providing standard project funding to the GNSO constituencies and stakeholder groups (see attached). I'd be very curious to hear thoughts of the membership as whether we should support this proposal and especially if you have any suggestions for amending the proposal.
Thanks!
Robin
Begin forwarded message:
From: Marilyn Cade <[log in to unmask]>
Date: November 13, 2011 6:36:35 PM PST
To: Steve Metalitz <[log in to unmask]>, Chris at Andalucia <[log in to unmask]>, Tony Holmes <[log in to unmask]>, Matt Serlin <[log in to unmask]>, Mason Cole <[log in to unmask]>, David Maher <[log in to unmask]>, Konstantine Komaitis <[log in to unmask]>, Amber Sterling <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: Robin Gross <[log in to unmask]>, "bc-secretariat @icann" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Initial Draft Proposal regarding standard Project Funding to Constituencies/SGs
I mentioned to some of you that the BC submitted a proposal last year that was not funded, but that we thought it useful to share with you, and seek your support for a version of a standard support project that can be self administered at the Constituency level [in the case of the Ry and RR, that would be SG level]. We proposed $20,000 in 2012, and you will see that we have increased it to $25,000 in 2013.
We have specific activities in mind, and listed those. They may not be inclusive of what your entity would want to seek funding for. In our case, we primarily want to do recruitment, and we would be able to support our part time secretariat/travel, and our ongoing interest in developing some materials.
You may have other items that you would like to see in the list, and we did not mean to make it exclusive.
We would welcome your views, including if you do not want to join in any further discussion. Each constituency would still have to submit their own budget request and each will be approved individually, without any dependencies. What we are proposing is a jointly developed endorsement of such an approach. This certainly isn't required by the budget process, however.
As you all know, when the GNSO improvements plan was approved by the Board, certain unfunded mandates including maintaining a website, archiving records, and certain other activities were mandated for constituencies/SGs but without any consideration of how we developed resources. I gathered that the staff and Board may have had some irrational enthusiam that the ToolKit would magically solve all such needs. It is useful, but not encompassing. And, ICANN's timeline for completing it has been extremely slow. The GNSO website improvements themselves are still pending, which has made us reluctant to move our website itself to ICANN. However, this proposal is about different services than the ToolKit provides, as you will see.
I hope you find this useful to consider, and welcome any suggestions, or thoughts.
As noted, I have shared the draft with the CFO, but only as a concept paper. I have not indicated whether others will join in endorsing or improving it, so don't feel that you are at this point committed to supporting the concept. You are not, but we would welcome collaborating, if that makes sense to you.
If any of you would like to have a phone discussion, we can arrange that as well.
I copied Benedetta Rossi, the BC's Secretariat, who would arrange any such call.
Regards
Marilyn Cade
Chris Chaplow