Hi Farzi,
Thanks for taking the lead and drafting this. I do not have much knowledge of agenda setting and decision-making processes in the Middle East and adjoining countries, but an issue in many regions is that not all nation-states are committed to bottom-up, multistakeholder governance frameworks.
So when I read the proposed strategy, which talks on page 9 of "promoting ICANN's role and multistakeholder approach" and "strengthen[ing] their commitment" to it, I can't help but wonder if we need an implementation strategy for achieving this rather than a regional PR strategy. This is probably my biggest issue with the document. I don't think it's particularly well-written, and the metrics in subsection 5.3.3 on page 19 for measuring its success are - in my view - meaningless. Things like, "The amount and quality of regional media coverage on ICANN and its work," "The number of beneficiaries of the ICANN Fellowship Program, the NextGen@ICANN Program, and CROPP," and "The number of participants in the various training programs and engagement activities" have a questionable Return on Investment for the purposes of this strategy (which is not to suggest they have no Return on Investment and should be discontinued - absolutely not! - they are valuable for other purposes) and are not likely to support the objective of the bottom-up multistakeholder model being taken seriously by local governments, in my view.
I think the Global Stakeholder Engagement Team for the Middle East needs to be honest about what its goals are. I think they're looking to mould a strategy around what the organisation is already spending money on, and what they already do, rather than seeking to understand what they could be doing better or what the community expects from them.
Sorry not to meet your deadline of yesterday before sharing my comments - I have an inbox overflowing with unread emails, was traveling, and all that... not particularly good excuses, but that's all I have ;-)
Best wishes,
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Public comment for "Middle East and Adjoining Countries 2016-2019 Strategy"
Local Time: 10 November 2016 1:16 PM
UTC Time: 10 November 2016 13:16
Thank you for raising this Farzaneh and taking the lead on it. I support the points as is and don't have anything else to add.