Dear all,

On 24 June 2017, the ICANN Board adopted ICANN's FY18 Operating Plan and Budget, the FY18 IANA Budget, and updates to the Five-Year Operating Plan. Under ICANN's post-IANA Stewardship Transition Bylaws, the Empowered Community has the power to consider and, if they choose, to reject these documents before they go into effect.

ICANN's FY18 Operating Plan and Budget, the FY18 IANA Budget, and updates to the Five-Year Operating Plan are the result of 11 months of collaborative work by the organization, community, PTI Board, and ICANN Board Finance Committee. They include:

• Highlights of all ICANN Operations
• Overview of ICANN's FY18 Budget
• Detailed FY18 Operating Plan
• Detailed descriptions of portfolios of activities to support the goals and objectives described in the ICANN Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2016 –2020, and the updated Five-Year Operating Plan
• Detailed lists of projects for each portfolio, with project-level budgeted costs
• Summary of changes from the Draft FY18 Operating Plan and Budget

The community's continuously increasing participation in the planning process is a cornerstone of ICANN's transparency and accountability to the global multistakeholder community. ICANN thanks all community members who contributed to the development of the budget. Budget documents for FY18 and previous years are published here.

In accordance with the ICANN Bylaws Annex D, Section 6.2, the Empowered Community now has the opportunity to trigger the following three actions:

• Rejection of the ICANN FY18 Operating Plan and Budget
• Rejection of the FY18 IANA Budget
• Rejection of updates to the Five-Year Operating Plan

Each of these documents will come into effect only after giving the Empowered Community time to consider whether it will raise a petition rejecting the budgets and/or operating plans. Decisional Participants of the Empowered Community have 28 days to bring forth a petition to reject any of these documents. To address concerns raised by a representative of the Empowered Community Administration on the explanation of timing, for clarification, under Annex D, Section 2 of the Bylaws, there is a 21-day period for any Decisional Participant to raise a petition to reject the documents, followed by a 7-day period to obtain support for that petition. For more information on the Petition Process, refer to the ICANN Bylaws.

If the Empowered Community does not raise a petition, both budgets will go into effect on 22 July 2017. In accordance with the ICANN Bylaws Sections 22.4(a)(ix) and 22.4(b)(ix), until the budgets are adopted, including throughout an Empowered Community Petition Process, both IANA and ICANN will operate under separate Caretaker Budgets during the period of FY18.

With the FY18 Caretaker Budget in effect, the ICANN organization will manage with limited operational impact. As noted in the FY18 Operating Plan and Budget, the ICANNFY18 Caretaker Budget prohibits ICANN from posting new positions and reduces travel and professional fees by 10%. The IANA Caretaker Budget is equal to the FY18 IANABudget to ensure the stability of the IANA functions.

Find here (https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2017-06-24-en) an answer to the following questions:

What Is the Empowered Community?

Who Can Participate in the Empowered Community?

How Does the Empowered Community Use Its powers?

For more information on the Empowered Community, click here.
For more information on ongoing Empowered Community petitions, click here.
For more information on upcoming Empowered Community opportunities, click here.

Best regards,

Joke Braeken

ccNSO Policy Advisor 

joke.braeken@icann.org

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