[bc-gnso] ALERTS from the Secretariat: Public Comment: Geographic Regions Review - Final Draft Report

[Benedetta Rossi <secretariat-bc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-3-30sep11-en.htm
Geographic Regions Review – Draft Final ReportComment Period Deadlines 
(*)Important Information LinksPublic Comment BoxOpen Date:30 September 2011To 
Submit Your Comments (Forum)Close Date:19 December 2011Time (UTC):23:59View 
Comments SubmittedSection I: Description, Explanation, and PurposeGeographic 
diversity is a fundamental component of the ICANN organization.  The ICANN 
Bylaws (Article VI Section 5) currently define five geographic regions as 
Africa, North America, Latin America/Caribbean, Asia/Australia/Pacific and 
Europe.The ICANN Geographic Regions were originally created to ensure regional 
diversity in the composition of the ICANN Board and were subsequently expanded 
in various ways to apply to the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), 
At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and the Country Code Names Supporting 
Organization (ccNSO).For the past two years a community-wide working group 
chartered by the ICANN Board has been working to (1) confirm the history, 
underlying principles and goals of the current geographic regions framework, 
(2) analyze how those goals and principles have been applied by the Board, 
Staff and community and (3) consulted with the community on how those 
principles and goals can be best maintained in the future.This Draft Final 
Report reflects the penultimate step of that research and consultation effort.  
The draft document outlines specific recommendations from the Working Group to 
the ICANN Board regarding how the present Geographic Regions Framework can be 
modified to ensure that the organizational principles of geographic and 
cultural diversity are honored and maintained. Those recommendations are based 
on thorough research, extensive community consultation and reflect the points 
of view of a wide range of the ICANN community.Mindful of the potential 
implications even small changes to the framework could have on the wider 
community, the WG decided to make this draft document available to the 
community for review and comment before the WG formally publishes its Final 
Report.  The WG will closely review all submitted comments to determine if 
further modifications to the draft document are necessary.Section II: 
BackgroundThe ccNSO Council approved a resolution in 2007 recommending that the 
ICANN Board appoint a community-wide working group to further study and review 
the issues related to the definition of the ICANN Geographic Regions, to 
consult with all stakeholders and submit proposals to the Board to resolve the 
issues relating to the current definition of the ICANN Geographic Regions.The 
rest of the community supported the concept of the working group and the Board 
authorized its formation at its December 2008 Meeting (see - 
http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-07nov08.htm#_Toc87682556).The Board 
approved the charter of the working group at its public meeting in June 2009 
(see -http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-26jun09.htm#1.2).  Copies of 
the Charter, in all six UN languages, are set forth here: 
http://www.icann.org/en/topics/geographic-regions/charter-26jun09-en.htm.The 
Working Group produced two previous reports. An Initial Report in which the 
Working Group (1) identified the various applications and functions to which 
“ICANN Geographic Regions” are currently applied by existing ICANN structures; 
(2) documented other regionally identified processes and structures used within 
ICANN but not defined in the Bylaws; and (3) detailed the “issues” that it 
thought should be covered during its subsequent investigations.The Working 
Group also produced an Interim Report that focused on general principles, 
specific considerations and some of the critical issues that it intended to 
address in its Final Report document. It (1) offered a review of the underlying 
history, objectives and general principles of ICANN’s Geographic Regions 
Framework; (2) raised a number of fundamental strategic questions for further 
community consideration; and (c) expanded on a number of specific issues 
identified in the Initial Report that were likely to be addressed in the Final 
Report.Section III: Document and Resource LinksDocuments posted for 
comment:Copies of the Draft Final Report in all six UN languages can be found 
at the following links:العربية [PDF, 325 KB]中文 [PDF, 358 KB]English [PDF, 252 
KB]Français [PDF, 324 KB]Русский [PDF, 388 KB]Español [PDF, 390 KB]Appendix A 
(EN) [PDF, 112 KB]Appendix B (EN) [PDF, 81 KB]Additional Resources:Further 
information on the work of the Geographic Regions Review Working Group is 
available 
at:https://community.icann.org/display/georegionwg/Home+Page+of+Geographic+Regions+Review+Working+GroupSection
 IV: Additional InformationThe entire structure of this Working Group effort 
has been organized to achieve broad community input. All the individual ICANN 
SOs and ACs were given the opportunity to comment on the community-wide working 
group concept and each community was invited to send participants to be 
involved with the working group (all but the RSSAC have contributed members). 
The entire community had the opportunity to comment on the proposed charter of 
the Working Group before it was approved by the Board (see March 2009 
Geographic Region Review WG Charter Public Comment Period).Every written report 
generated by the Working Group has been published in all six UN languages and 
each has been subjected to extended community review and comment opportunities. 
Working Group members individually reported on the group’s progress to their 
respective communities. The Working Group also sponsored a community survey (in 
the six UN languages and Portuguese) seeking another form of community input on 
the geographic regions framework.  Additionally, a public session was conducted 
at the ICANN Public Meeting in Brussels (June 2010) and public workshops were 
conducted at the Cartagena (December 2010), San Francisco (March 2011) and 
Singapore (June 2011) Public Meetings to gather further community perspectives 
on this matter.Staff Contact:Robert HoggarthEmail:robert.hoggarth@xxxxxxxxx


Kind Regards,

Benedetta Rossi
BC Secretariatwww.bizconst.orgsecretariat-bc@xxxxxxxxxxx