ICANN65 Session Notes: Evolving the Effectiveness of ICANN’s Multistakeholder Model

Name of Session: Evolving the Effectiveness of ICANN’s Multistakeholder Model

Date: Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Attended By: Ore Lesi

Background:

Based on the Governance Plan to Improve the Effectiveness of ICANN’s Multistakeholder Model:

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance-plan-improve-multistakeholder-model-2019-04-08-en

Key Points:

The Issues:

1. Prioritisation of the work:

• Who set’s ICANN’s priorities as a whole?
• What is the mechanism to say no to new work?

Community: The community already is coming-up with solutions to overload.

ICANN: The conversation now is focused on what the issues are. Solutions will be explored later on (when?).

Community: ICANN’s approach to addressing this issue is academic and the whole process will take too long. Some terms e.g. consensus do not need to be defined as there is already somewhat of a shared understanding.

It should not be the board’s responsibilities to set priorities. Each segment needs to set its own priorities.

There is no need to have so many issues, but rather have some high-priority issues (e.g. diversity & inclusion..), which when addressed will take care of other lower-priority issues.

There are overarching priorities according to the strategic plan. However each community has its own priorities. The conflict comes from the tension of supply and demand of resources, as not all issues can be taken care of. Perhaps a rep from each SO and AC can be selected to meet with each other and to share the priorities that each community has defined and negotiate for needed resources.

2. Precision in scoping the work

• How can ICANN improve precision in scoping the work?

Community: Start from the ICANN mandate. This will guide in what we should and should not do.

The strategic plan informs the macro level of scoping, while communities’ needs informs the micro level. Let’s not get too bogged down in trying to scope work perfectly.

3. Costs

• How do we identify and project the cost of policy-mking and related work?

4. Consensus

• How do you get diverse groups of people, organisations and govt to have the appropriate incentives and authority to come to a consensus on contentious and complex issues?
• Should there be term limits?
• How do we bring in diverse people?

5. Complexity:

• Who addresses complexity and information overload (and for newcomers and non-English speakers)?

6. Efficient Use of Resources

7. Culture & Trust & Silos

• How can ICANN’s culture change to be more proactive and move away from silos?

8. Roles and Responsibilities & Holistic View of ICANN:

• How can we create a shared and clear understanding of roles of respective community members, staff and board?

Public comment on further issue refinement and prioritisation will be open in July.

NPOC Operational Issues Identified (if any):

The effectiveness of what we do rests on the success of the multistakeholder model.

Conclusion:

Read or listen to the session notes: https://65.schedule.icann.org/meetings/1058185

There is an opportunity for the community to give input into prioritising the already identified issues, according to what we feel is most critical. –→ Call for public comments in July

The discussion will continue in ICANN66 in Montreal.