Hello Sylvia, all thanks for your thoughts.
1. I think we finally found the right wording. "In service of ICANN's mission" gives real meaning to what the auction proceeds funds can support. Great!
I agree that it is a good wording (in particular because it matches the by-laws wording, as I mentioned a year or so agao) but without more guidance on scope, like we attempted to deliver with the preamble on open and interoperable internet, we're leaving the scoping part of our work pretty much empty IMO. I agree with the board that our preamble is a bit unclear on its semantics, but at least it gives future evaluators useful directions we all agreed on.
2. I think the suggestion from the board about programming disbursement based in tranches (3-4 years period) is common practice among many donors and agencies and supports the overall need of fine-tunning processes and procedures as the mechanism kicks off. Having ways to identify when things might not be working and ways to tackle them and incorporate corrective measurements is key. Another benefit of this is that those tranches could be aligned with ICANN's strategic planning/focus. It will be a good idea to try to align those tranches with whatever cycles ICANN normally goes through, so that it is easier to be "in service of ICANN"s mission".
I'm not sure what 3-4years refers to, one tranche ? or the entire duration of the full auctions benefits granting ? If one tranche, does this mean that the board is OK with a grant agency setup that would last for several of these tranches, so potentially more than 10 years ? (five 4-year tranches is 20 years).
3. The evaluation of the mechanism itself and the projects it will support should also be sync and aligned with those programming cycles. Assessing impact on a 3 to 4 years framework makes a lot more sense than assessing projects only during their implementation period and final reporting requirements. Revisiting projects/organizations supported after a while and track how funds allocated supported their growth and development is a key part of assessing the real impact, and it is also a very good mechanism to build community, strengthen collaboration and have an understanding of the issues on the field. I just have a cautionary word of advice when defining those mechanisms, so that there is balance between the quantitative and the qualitative information collected. Anecdotal information about how "god" or "bad" something is will certainly not be enough, but focusing only on quantitative indicators is also an incomplete view of the work done. A key element on that evaluation/monitoring strategy is to identify the individuals that are behind projects /organizations supported. Most organization/projects that are successful are so because of the team behind them. Putting a face to the dollars invested, also helps to support leadership development, build capacity and a support network of peers.
4. Regarding the question about what is better... if funding few large projects or more smaller projects, I think that it will really depend on the areas of focus and the activities provided. There may be projects that will not be successful if they do not have the necessary budget commitment, so they might be at a disadvantage from the beginning. My suggestion will be that out of the first tranches to be explored, the mechanism allocates funding across both options, so that their effectiveness can also be compared -to a certain extent-.
I agree that we should be flexible to start with, but still, are we talking about granting 20K or 20M ? I've been in this group for more than a year and I still have no idea of what the group has in mind. I think we should set up some ranges of acceptable grants (e.g. 500K up to 10M). It costs of a lot of grant agency resources to merely reject projects in all fairness, and I'm not sure we want to let this thing go live with the potential of folks asking 10K for their schools or 200M at once for rewiring Antartica, and having to read all their literature for nothing. I think that if we take the goal of minimizing the overhead costs seriously, and knowing that managing a 10M$ project is not 20 times more expensive than managing a 500K$ project, we'll have to come up with some rules on average amounts to be funded (like all granters do usually, to manage their project officer staff). When are we planning to discuss these topics ? Or are these sort of issues moved ahead for when the grant agency/dept/partnership gets created ? (and become their issues ?)
Kind regards,
Sylvia
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Sylvia Cadena | APNIC Foundation - Head of Programs | sylvia@apnic.net | http://www.apnic.foundation ISIF Asia, WSIS Champion on International Cooperation 2018 | http://www.isif.asia | FB ISIF.asia | @ISIF_Asia | G+ ISIFAsia | 6 Cordelia Street, South Brisbane, QLD, 4101 Australia | PO Box 3646 | +10 GMT | skypeID: sylviacadena | Tel: +61 7 3858 3100 | Fax: +61 7 3858 3199 * Love trees. Print only if necessary.
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