Omissions from strategic plan draft
The 18 March 2006 draft of the ICANN strategic plan for July 2006 - June 2009 omits the following 3 important points. Each of these was requested during the public forum on the strategic plan in Vancouver, as transcribed at: http://www.icann.org/meetings/vancouver/captioning-stratplan-session-02dec05.htm I request that each of the following be added to the plan: (1) On page 7 of the draft, the listing of "Key challenges ... for ICANN" omits what I (and, I think, many other community members) believe is the most significant challenge facing ICANN: ICANN's crisis of credibility and perceived legitimacy. As I said in Vancouver, "THE GREATEST CHALLENGE FOR ICANN, ESPECIALLY IN A POST-MOU WORLD, IS THE PERCEIVED LACK OF LEGITIMACY AND CREDIBILITY FOR ICANN WITH THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMUNITY. AND I BELIEVE THAT THAT SHOULD BE EXPLICITLY ACKNOWLEDGED AS SUCH ON THE FIRST SLIDE, "CHALLENGES FOR ICANN." ... I THINK THAT BREAKS DOWN TO THREE THINGS ... A, TRANSPARENCY, B, OVERSIGHT, AND C, ACCOUNTABILITY." (2) In the draft, openness and transparency is considered only as a public relations problem, on page 17 of the draft: "Develop mechanisms to report on ICANN’s openness, transparency, inclusiveness and its multilateral and multi-stakeholder environment." It is an insult to the community to suggest, as this draft implicitly does, that the problem is that we, the stakeholders, just don't understand how open and transparent ICANN is, and that the solution lies in re-educating us. ICANN needs to do more about openness and transparency than hire more propagandists to "report on" ICANN's current structure. ICANN needs to actually become more open and transparent. As I suggested on this point in Vancouver, "I WOULD SUGGEST AS METRICS FOR IMPROVING TRANSPARENCY WITHIN THE FIRST YEAR -- I THINK THEY'RE ALL ACHIEVABLE WITHIN THE FIRST YEAR -- ONE, THE DESIGNATION OF A POINT OF CONTACT FOR REQUESTS UNDER THE TRANSPARENCY BYLAW; TWO, A POLICY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS TO DEFINE CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING WHEN IT IS NOT FEASIBLE TO RESPOND TO A PARTICULAR TRANSPARENCY REQUEST; THREE, THE DEFINITION OF A TIME FRAME WITH WHICH A DECISION MUST BE MADE ON A REQUEST FOR ACCESS TO INFORMATION UNDER THE TRANSPARENCY BYLAW. (3) On page 18, the draft lists no specifics for what is required to satisfy the remaining MOU objectives, or for post-MOU governance. As I said in Vancouver, I believe the most important incomplete task for both the MOU and any post-MOU governance is the implementation of an oversight mechanism: "LET ME SUGGEST ... AT LEAST TWO APPROPRIATE METRICS WITH REGARD TO POST-MOU OVERSIGHT.... I WOULD SUGGEST AS METRICS FOR THE FIRST SIX MONTHS, DEVELOPMENT OF POLICIES AND PROCEDURES FOR INDEPENDENT REVIEW TO IMPLEMENT THE BYLAW, AND CLEARING OF THE BACKLOG OF OUTSTANDING INDEPENDENT REVIEW REQUESTS." Sincerely, Edward Hasbrouck -------------------- Edward Hasbrouck edward@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://hasbrouck.org +1-415-824-0214 |