Dear councillors,
In April 2017, a drafting team was tasked to prepare a submission to the ICANN FY 2018 Budget and/or Operational Plan, seeking an increase in the number of ccNSO traveling slots. The council statement, requesting an increase of the current 12 slots, was submitted and published here: https://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/ccnso-council-fy18-budget-op-28apr17-en.pdf
Following that submission, the ccNSO was allocated an additional five (5) travel support slots for each ICANN public meeting in FY18.
Here is the relevant language set forth in the ICANN Org replies to community comments and requests made as part of the ICANN’s Draft FY18 Operating Plan and Budget, and Five-Year Operating Plan Update (see - https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/report-comments-fy18-budget-02jun17-en.pdf at pages 31 and 35).
Response language to Ref#31 from page 35 of the report – Request to increase number of ccNSO traveling slots:
“The ICANN Organization response to Ref # 8 above, should also be consulted by readers as an introduction to this text response.
** The issues raised by the ccNSO request are excellent issue points to be addressed in the type of community consultation that ICANN Organization expects to seek in FY18. Pending the broader community consultation on this matter in FY18, it would seem appropriate to provide the ccNSO with the opportunity to expand its FY18 travel allocation by a total of 5 traveler slots per public meeting. These slots would be for FY18 only and further allocations will be dependent on future strategic examination of Community Travel support by the community and ICANN Organization. Travel slots not used during any particular public meeting cannot be carried-forward to a future meeting.”
Here is the relevant referenced Ref#8 language from page 31 of the report.
“Although extensive investments have been made to remote participation capabilities over the last several years, ICANN Organization recognizes the tremendous value provided to the Organization and the community by its volunteer leaders and contributing participants at face-to-face public meetings. A few years ago, ICANN Organization recognized that individual community requests to increase permanent travel support levels at ICANN public meetings were important and strategic enough to require consideration as part of the overall Operating Plan and Budget. The primary driver of this need for process is the recognition that a continuously growing community might necessitate increased travel support. Over the past several years several communities have experimented with increased levels of funding piloted through the Additional Budget Request process. In a number of those cases, having been proven, increased support was identified for coverage in the core ICANN Organization budget annual. The long term sustainability of Community Travel support requires a strategic examination by the entire community and ICANN Organization will seek to proceed with a direct community consultation in FY18 to examine and assess the best strategic approach to examine the purpose, value and resources needed to continue to support the community in its face-to-face deliberations at ICANN Public Meetings. Traditionally, the ICANN Organization has allocated a certain number of seats for each community and that allocation has been based on publicly-produced travel guidelines. For the most part, but not consistently, ICANN has ceded responsibility for how particular community allocations should be disbursed to each community itself to decide - with staff then following through on the administrative efforts to arrange, book and record the travel requested. As a number of community requests for travel-slot-expansion have revealed over the past couple of years (e.g., particularly the ALAC, ccNSO, and GAC this year), those travel guidelines have not been updated since FY14. The passage of time and other circumstances require a re-examination of those allocations for tactical, strategic and community balance needs. There are several strategic questions that need to be addressed in such an inquiry - inter alia, what is the purpose of community travel support; how much support is appropriate across the community; are all communities similarly situated from a participant/need/engagement perspective? These and other questions may be explored as these discussions move forward.”
As you may remember, the FY18 Budget was approved by the Board during the Johannesburg meeting at the end of June, but could only be in effect in the absence of a rejection by the Empowered Community. In the meantime, ICANN has been operating under the "Caretaker budget" since 1 July. Monday 17 July, ICANN received notification from the Empowered Community that no rejection of the Budget would be exercised, and therefore the board-approved FY18 Budget is in effect since the 23rd of July (at the expiration of the 28-day period since the Board approval).
The ccNSO secretariat received confirmation from ICANN staff on 26 July that additional travel funding slots were granted for FY18, including for ICANN60. The deadline to submit the details of the ccNSO funded travellers to ICANN constituency
travel was Friday 28 July. Since there was no time to run an additional call for applications to receive ccNSO travel funding for ICANN60 to fill the additional slots, and seen the fact that the current ccNSO Travel Fund Guideline (https://ccnso.icann.org/about/travel-funding-07apr16-en.pdf) did
not provide guidance, the ccNSO chair agreed to a one-time procedure where the Secretariat suggested a proposed distribution of the additional travel funding slots, with the opportunity by the ccNSO Travel Fund Committee to provide input in case they did not
agree with the proposed way forward.
Language from the ccNSO Travel Funding Guideline:
The ccNSO Chair shall not be a member of the Travel Fund Committee, as the Chair has a final say in the event that the guidelines do not provide guidance and/or their impact is unreasonable.
After passing of the final deadline for input by the Travel Fund Committee, the ccNSO secretariat informed ICANN constituency travel of the distribution of the ccNSO travel support slots as published here:
https://ccnso.icann.org/about/funded-travel
Furthermore, the review the revised draft of the ccNSO Travel Fund Guideline will be on the agenda of the next GRC-meeting on 14 August.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Joke Braeken
ccNSO Policy Advisor
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