Chris and all, I know that Gabi made a call for additional candidates for travel support, and in particular in my region several people obtained support this way. But I regret that we did not receive a final call before the deadline, with an explicit mention that there were still 5 available slots, and that they would be lost if we didn't use them. Now it seems that we cannot use them even if someone from our community came forward now asking for support, but somehow ICANN would be flexible enough to allow the GAC to use these slots. This seems strange, and if that option is open for the GAC, I don't understand why it would not be open to us. Having said that, if we definitely cannot use any of those slots, I would agree to give them to the GAC, provided that those government representatives were made aware that their travel is sponsored, so to say, by the ccTLD community. Ideally, I hope we would have some say in who gets funding. For instance, I wouldn't be very comfortable if support went to some government that is hostile to the current ccTLD administrator. Patricio Chris Disspain wrote:
All,
As you know we have submitted to ICANN 13 people who will be funded to travel to Sydney. We had an allocation of 18 to be used by the end of June 2009 and therefore have not taken up 5.
I have been approached by the GAC Chair, Janis Karklins, who says:
"As you may be aware, the GAC is currently working through mechanisms to ensure least and less developed country participation and securing financial support for their participation through the ICANN operational and budget planning process. As this processes and a proposed approach is for the next fiscal year, we are faced with some attendees needing support for the ICANN Sydney meeting. Would the ccNSO have space through its travel support from ICANN and if so, would it be willing to share its unused travel support for 3 to 4 government representatives from developing or least developed countries?
The GAC stands ready to discuss with ccNSO or ICANN staff the administrative details in case of your favorable response."
I have checked with Doug Brent and Theresa Swinehart who say that we would not 'share' any unused support but rather we would simply confirm to ICANN that we have no objection to them reallocating our unused support to some nominees put forward by the GAC.
I think we should do this in the spirit of cooperation. Does anyone object?
Cheers,
Chris Disspain
CEO - auDA
au Domain Administration Ltd
ceo@auda.org.au <mailto:ceo@auda.org.au>
www.auda.org.au <http://www.auda.org.au/>
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