Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] fundraising and the donor community

["Anthony Harris" <harris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew,

This is very enlightening information, and actually
confirms my impression as to potential donor
interest, which I pick up within the GKP environment
which includes a number of donor agencies.

With regards to reaching out to governments, that
is a good idea. For example, the following are donor
agencies related to national governments:

SIDA - Swedish International Development Cooperation
             Agency - www.sida.se 
SDC - Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
            www.sdc.admin.ch 

Both of these agencies have been very active since the
WSIS supporting ICT social inclusion initiatives in many
parts of the world. They tend to focus on certain specific
under-developed countries.

Hope this is useful

Tony

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Andrew Mack 
  To: soac-newgtldapsup-wg@xxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 7:47 PM
  Subject: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] fundraising and the donor community


  As I mentioned on Friday I reached out to a few contacts in the donor 
community to get their impressions of our work and the possibility of shaking 
loose some funding.  The response I got was as follows:

  1) The whole issue is not really on the World Bank or donor radar screen at 
this point.  There are few people at the Bank (and none that I could find at 
the Inter-American Development Bank) that are really focused on the new gTLD 
process, and nobody whose job it is to respond to the issues as we are looking 
at them.  Overall knowledge of ICANN is weak, since most Bank staff at the 
project level are social scientists or economists (don't have the background), 
and a lot of tech projects are still focused on access not policy -- and 
surprisingly little is internet focused.

  2) Overall, my WB contacts agreed that the Bank was substantially behind the 
curve on this and internet governance generally.  This is for three reasons:  
      a) less developed countries are generally not focused on this and don't 
understand the issues, thus aren't requesting aid here
      b) WB staff who understand this field are very few, and there is nobody 
in management who "gets" this, so people don't spend time
      c) the issue is still perceived as narrow and technical, not directly 
touching the Bank's core deliverables

  3) They suggested that if we are looking for financial support, we re-cast 
the issue directly around economic development, explaining specifically how our 
JAS work might more or less directly lead to web-enabled jobs and an expansion 
of local tech-based businesses.  Not sure if we have the data to do this, but 
the sense I got was that most any donor will be looking for us to make that 
bridge if we're looking for real money.  

  4) Given the importance at the Bank of India, Pakistan and a number of 
Arabic-speaking nations (all receive a lot of aid), the issue of IDNs and 
addressing the digital divide could be a good selling points.  

  5) It was also suggested that we reach out to the Italian government, as 
they've done a lot of work on e-government and other contiguous issues.  
Finding two donors who could pair up might be the best way to go.

  In sum, we will need to connect a few dots to make a compelling case (which 
may be tough).  Good news is that the amount of money we're looking for did not 
at all sound out of the realm of possibility if we can make the case.

  Andrew  
  -- 
                                                                                
                                                        

  Andrew A. Mack
  Principal
  AMGlobal Consulting

  +1-202-642-6429  amack@xxxxxxxxxxxx   
  2001 Massachusetts Avenue, NW  First Floor
  Washington, DC 20036
  www.amglobal.com