Dear all,

Please find included the draft resolution on the ccNSO &UA roadmap and next steps.

As you may recall at the last Council meeting it was agreed that the decision would be taken on-line.

If you have any objections to the resolution and/or questions, please reply to this email by 4 April 2023, 23.59 UTC.

Thank you and kind regards,

Bart

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Draft Resolution

Background

Various stakeholders requested the ccNSO Council to initiate the discussion on the role of the ccNSO with respect to Universal Acceptance. Starting at ICANN75 ccTLD managers and others explored the potential role of the ccNSO, suggesting 15 activities the ccNSO could undertake, complementary to already existing work in this area. 

In two successive workshops the proposals were further detailed and assessed by Councillors and community members, and, as final step, prioritised (following the standard method of an impact/effort analysis. These results were presented to Council at its April meeting and to the community at ICANN76. 

The ccNSO & UA Roadmap 

The ccNSO & UA roadmap suggest the following staged approach to define the role and responsibilities of the ccNSO with respect to Universal Acceptance:

Step 1 - activate UASG liaison

The ccNSO has appointed a liaison to the UASG. This liaison will regularly inform the ccNSO through its Council what is happening in the UASG and vice-versa. 

Step 2 - Create ccNSO UA committee

The ccNSO should create a dedicated committee, to:

· Assist in organising sessions on UA readiness and practices, e.g. at Tech Day or during ccNSO Members Meetings.

· Liaise with other relevant ICANN groups (e.g. UASG, GAC IDN WG, Board IDN/UA WG), and incorporate the role of the ccNSO appointed UASG liaison. 

· Coordinate with interested ccTLDs to share IDN/UA readiness case studies and working models, to highlight and share knowledge on current practices in IDN support and UA readiness

· Provide a report repository on EAI adoption in ccTLD zones

This initiative does require an active role of the volunteers, at the same time it does provide an avenue for the community to interact across regions and with other groups  under the ICANN umbrella.  

Step 3 - Explore further actions

Once the committee is established and the activities are well underway, the next step would be to explore whether other proposed activities, which are not addressed through the initial activities,  should be undertaken. Examples are to cooperate with local authorities on creating demand for IDN domain names and the use of local languages/scripts.  

The exploration should include a community consultation and at a minimum the group should check whether the benefits of the proposed activities outweigh the efforts needed to implement and how activities can be maintained).

Decision

The ccNSO Council adopts the proposed roadmap ccNSO & Universal Acceptance. The Council thanks the ad-hoc group for completing the Roadmap.

The Council requests the ad-hoc group to draft the terms of Reference for the ccNSO UA Standing Committee as envisioned in the ccNSO & UA Roadmap, and present the draft Terms of Reference by the  Council’s May meeting (meeting 195).

The secretariat is requested to publish the resolution upon adoption. This resolution becomes effective seven (7) days after publication.