Dear all, I propose at least to read the text of the petition (and yes, I also prefer not to use change.org). Best regards, Oksana We are deeply concerned about the budget cutbacks proposed by ICANN for the fiscal year 2019. Amid claims that the budget is tightened due to the slow growth of the domain name industry, the FY19 budget proposal significantly increases personnel costs by $7.3M while at the same time makes an extreme 50% cut to the Fellowship Program, which is mostly comprised of volunteers from developing countries who cannot afford to attend the ICANN conferences in person. Our understanding of this counterintuitive financial proposal is that it aims to increase salaries and bonuses of ICANN employees at the expense of jeopardizing the strategic objectives of the ICANN organization which are to "evolve and further globalize ICANN" and to "serve the global multistakeholder community". Since its establishment, the ICANN Community has grown from a few people in the past to over thousands of people attending each meeting, both newcomers and regular attendees. Some attendees have joined the ICANN Community through the Fellowship Program and others have taken on leadership positions in different constituencies as well as joined the ICANN Organisation and the ICANN Board. With the proposed budget plans, the number of fellows is planned to be drastically reduced from 60 to 30 (see page 22 of ICANN's Document 2: Draft FY19 Total Budget <https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/proposed-total-budget-fy19-19jan...> ). The Fellowship Community has also grown, with diversity at the forefront of ensuring that almost all communities are represented. Documents regarding the travel budget for the recent Johannesburg meeting demonstrate that ICANN generously spent about $170,000 to support 60 Fellows, so reducing the number to 30 would save around $200,000 per year. This amount is less than 0.15% from the overall $138M budget for FY19. On the other hand, the FY19 budget will allocate $1.9M to the Office of the CEO that consists of 3 employees, while $10.3M will be dedicated to a team of 27 experts responsible for Strategic Communications (see page 12 <https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/proposed-total-budget-fy19-19jan...> of the document cited above). At the same time, the budget plan proposes to expand headcount from 400 to 425 by hiring 25 new staff and by increasing personnel costs from $69.5M to $76.8M (see page 11 of ICANN's Document 1: Draft FY19 Operating Plan and Budget Introduction and Highlights <https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/proposed-opplan-budget-intro-hig...>). This is an increase of $7.3M per year which would result in roughly $180,000 spent on a yearly basis for each ICANN employee. If the planned hires are reduced by only 2 (from 25 to 23), this would be more than sufficient to give each year the opportunity to 90 fellows to become part of the community. We believe that without funding through the ICANN Fellowship Program, a significant number of people would not be able to attend ICANN meetings and to further engage in ICANN activities at global, regional and local community levels. Given that most of the fellows are from developing countries, the Fellowship Program is not only a learning platform for capacity building to empower volunteers with the skills needed to create a positive impact both within ICANN and in their home countries, but also it is practically the only way to overcome the insurmountable financial burden faced by individuals coming from world regions where even access to drinking water is problematic, not to mention access to computers and quality IT infrastructure that is taken for granted in developed countries. We, therefore, strongly urge that the proposed budget is reconsidered so as the number of fellows be kept at 60 and not cut by half. Please sign this petition to stop the ICANN budget cuts and help save the Fellowship Program! On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 12:37 AM, < euro-discuss-request@atlarge-lists.icann.org> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Should EURALO sign a petition? Should you? (Roberto Gaetano) 2. Re: Should EURALO sign a petition? Should you? (Nenad Marinkovic)
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Message: 1 Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2018 22:06:40 +0000 From: Roberto Gaetano <roberto_gaetano@hotmail.com> To: S Van Gelder <svg@milathan.ltd> Cc: EURALO Discuss <euro-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: Re: [EURO-Discuss] Should EURALO sign a petition? Should you? Message-ID: <7C5251E5-B33C-4283-BAD5-881976E8599C@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
My personal opinion is that the question is not about the budget cuts - if cuts are needed, let it be so - but how the cuts are affecting the different stakeholders. The question for me is whether the impact of the cuts on the different stakeholder groups is fair or whether there is one part of the community that is affected more than others. Still, the question of whether a petition is in order or not holds. But on the other question, that is whether the affected communities should raise the issue, my position is ?Yes, definitively?. Andrei is right. We need data. What is the foreseeable consequence of this budget cut on internet users? My personal opinion is that in the users community most of the outreach is through the means that are now been reduced. This will simply mean that we put further obstacles to user participation. But we need more than just personal opinions if we want to build a case. Cheers, Roberto
On 21.02.2018, at 22:15, St?phane Van Gelder - Milathan <svg@milathan.ltd <mailto:svg@milathan.ltd>> wrote:
Completely agree with Andrei. I oppose the signing of a petition to oppose cuts. I would add to his reasons the fact that the Board Chair and the CEO have both laid down extremely well articulated arguments for why budget cuts are needed. I would worry that a EURALO response through a petition would not only look political, it would look immature.
If we have strong arguments as to why some cuts should not happen, let?s produce them through the usual ICANN discussion channels open to us.
Thanks,
St?phane
On 21 Feb 2018, at 21:24, Andrei Kolesnikov <andrei@rol.ru<mailto:andrei@ rol.ru>> wrote:
I'm against signing any petition on change.org<http://change.org/>, because it sounds political. If community is against the cut, this must be articulated with facts, numbers and names. I don't like personnel cost increase, but this is another issue. --andrei
2018-02-21 20:06 GMT+03:00 Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com<mailto: ocl@gih.com>>: Dear colleagues,
on yesterday's EURALO monthly call, the following Action Item was recorded.
: Olivier Crepin-Leblond<https://community.icann.org/display/% 7Eolivier.crepin-leblond> Olivier to follow up on the EURALO mailing list on the suggestion from Oksana for EURALO support the petition against reduction of the ICANN fellowship as well as to write an EURALO statement against the CROP elimination.
As you know, the ICANN FY19 budget is undergoing to reduction. This will mean that some programmes are frozen, whilst others are actually reduced. The current draft of the program is showing drastic cuts in community engagement and policy. The Fellowship is being slashed, and so is the NextGen program. The Community Regional Outreach Pilot Program (CROP) which was confirmed into the main budget as it was seen as being so helpful, is being cancelled altogether. It is a terrible state of affairs, as it appears that ICANN has targeted community initiatives for outreach and engagement to a much greater extent that other programmes and the cuts, as a percentage of the budget for outreach and engagement initiatives are way larger than for other programmes.
You might has seen a petition out there, entitled "Stop the ICANN Budget Cuts and Save the Fellowship Program!" On last night's EURALO call, Oksana Prykhodko asked whether EURALO could be inclined to sign this petition: https://www.change.org/p/icann-stop-the-icann-budget- cuts-and-save-the-fellowship-program
The signing of a petition is highly unusual for a RALO. I can recall several occurrences of a RALO releasing its own Statement. I can also recall EURALO supporting EuroDIG as a partner - and this translates to the EURALO Chair (previously Wolf Ludwig and now yours truly) being active in the organisation of EuroDIG. If my memory serves me right, the only time EURALO has signed a Petition, might be the signature for support of NetMundial outcomes. Perhaps can Wolf help with other potential occurences?
At the end of the day, there are no rules on whether EURALO may or may not sign this petition. So the decision is in your hands, the EURALO members.
Should EURALO sign the petition? Should your ALS sign the petition?
Kindest regards,
Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond EURALO Chair
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