This is my suggested material for ALAC Presentation by Vittorio
tomorrow.
It is not "from Asia Pacific" material, but I tried to recap what we
have discussed during past days here in Cape Town and added
my very own ideas and phrases. I do not insist that Vittorio
should incoporate all of them, some are inmmature, perhaps, and
others are not in tune with others thought. But I hope there
is some value we can share.
I may think more about these and write more, but in the mean
time, for your own considersation, I share this.
izumi
--------
Are we meeting with the "outside" expectations?
Simple answer is NO - in both ways: better than initial low expectations,
but worse
than what we really want to be.
We are at a critical juncture now - to succeed or fail will depend on our
performance
in perhaps next 12 months. AND.
It is not only ALAC's business, to have functional AtLarge within ICANN
community,
but it is up to all the constituencies' who really think they need AtLarge
or not.
We are now making our own internal review and hopefully the result in a
shape of a
position paper will be finalized within 2 months time. In this excersise
we will
evaluate our own performance, as well as the situation and conditions
surrounding
AtLarge, both within and outside of ICANN world.
We have worked hard to out-reach and produced 19 ALSs certified to date.
This is
still far lower than we need to establish effective RALO mechanism in all
five regions.
We are facing difficulty, frankly, in showing clear benefit or value to
potential AL
members to come and form ALS and RALO within ICANN.
On the other hand, we have put serious effort to be engaged in policy
issues and
policy developing process of ICANN with other consistencies. By doing so, we
think we have demonstrated the significant value of having users voices
into the
PDP - for all constituencies.
Unless you have the functional mechanism within ICANN process to
effectively hear
and incorporate users' voices, ICANN will become, to borrow Paul Twomey's
word,
a "mere Trade Organization". This is the fundamental question. Does ICANN need
AtLarge, or does only AtLarge needs AtLarge.
Now that after two years of ALAC activities, we see certain accomplishment and
certain failures or shortcomings. But within these two years, ICANN itself
have
faced serious and legitimate challenges. Recent development of political
debate
around "Internet Governance" at the WSIS process and its WGIG work is a clear
indication of the challenges ICANN is now facing as a whole.
While some governments now demand their greater role to perform, including the
management of DNS and IP address and other identifiers/resources, other
governments
and most Internet community do not follow this call and still believe in that
private-sector led, self-governance model without excessive governmental
regulation
and intervention is far better than giving more role to governments and
their Inter-governmental organizations such us UN and ITU.
But in order to keep this belief credible and functional, ICANN community
should ask
themselves. How do we cope with the now massive number of users on the
globe using
the Internet - unlike two years ago? Do we have enough capacity? Do we
have enough
legitimacy? Are we reaching to the all parts of the world, developed and
developing,
in sufficient degree?
These are the questions AtLarge is facing. But ICANN is facing as well.
The original assumption of AtLarge mechanism designed more than two years ago
during the Reform process was based on the assumption that individual
end-users will
self-organize and form a constituency in a bottom-up manner,
self-sustaining and
independent. While this assumption has a very sound base at that time, the
reality came
out during the past 2 years may not support this.
Unlike the other stakeholders (except, perhaps, NCUC of gNSO) where they have
clear business model in relation to areas of ICANN activities, individual
users do not
have means and ways to be engaged directly to ICANN. This does not mean
they have
no interest or concern. They have other important priorities to make their
living first.
That is the definition of, Users, not suppliers.
Many ALAC members for example are having problem with their own
institutions, or
business organizations to allocate his or her time and energy on ICANN
AtLarge activities
not to mention financial resources. Only very few fortunate people can
devote the energy
and time to be active at ALAC.
Of course, we are supposed to reach out to existing and new organizations
around the
world, ask them to become ALS and form RALO to create sustainable base to
participate
ICANN activities with user perspectives. But is this model workable?
We at ALAC will ask this fundamental question in our coming activities and
will get back
to you with at least some collective answers.
END