At its January and March meetings, ICANN's Board affirmed the utility of the Accountability & Transparency Review Team (ATRT) report in advancing ICANN’s accountability and transparency and asked for Staff and community follow-up work. The Board also asked Board Committees and the Board-GAC Joint Working Group (JWG) to address specified ATRT recommendations and asked the Board Finance Committee to consider proposed FY2012 ATRT implementation funding as detailed by Staff.

Significant progress has been made on implementation of the ATRT "Board Governance, Performance & Composition" recommendations. A wealth of Board meeting information is now regularly posted: agendas, Board briefing materials, expanded Board minutes, rationale statements for Board resolutions, and resolutions. A significant amount of Board meeting information also is now posted in six U.N. languages, including resolutions, rationale, minutes and other key material relevant to Board resolutions. To support these postings, the template used to create Board papers has been revised, and a document was finalized and posted that sets forth conditions for redaction of Board briefing materials that are posted, along with explanation of timing of the postings. To address Board composition, the Nominating Committee has already taken voluntary steps to comply with some ATRT recommendations, including consulting with Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees, and holding public consultations on skill set requirements and process improvements at the March ICANN meeting

Implementation work for ATRT recommendations relating to "Governmental Advisory Committee’s Role, Effectiveness and Interaction with Board" is in the early stages. Staff has provided proposed implementation plans and budgets to the GAC and JWG and is awaiting guidance on implementation. The Board Global Relations Committee has provided initial guidance on Recommendation 14 for increasing the level of support and involvement of governments.

Work is underway on implementation of the ATRT "Public Input & Public Policy Processes" recommendations. Two important items in this category will be posted shortly: the ICANN Bylaws, and the ICANN Language Services Policy and Procedures (guidelines for translation, interpretation, and other language-related services). This month a new, more streamlined draft design for ICANN’s Public Comment Webpages will be launched. This will be supported by internal staff templates to collect consistent information for each public comment and to report on closed comment periods. A draft stratification list – designed to direct the community’s attention to topics of interest – is under Staff review and will be reviewed by a focus group of community members next month. A process to collect and publish an annual list of “Upcoming Public Comments for 2011” was developed with the input from SO/AC leaders and ICANN Staff, and will be published this month.

Staff also is working on implementation of the ATRT recommendations on "Review Mechanism(s) for Board Decisions." Initial improvements to the Reconsideration Request web page will be done in the near future, including the addition of status indicators for all Requests, and information on Boardaction arising out of the committee recommendations.