Hi,

this is way more significant than "sidelining the technical community as a distinct voice in Internet governance matters." The way the Global Digital Compact is being built by the Digital Envoy of Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Mr. Amandeep Singh Gill, lumps together the technical community and civil society. By doing so, it is making the Digital Compact in the future unable to steer itself infused by techical knowledge of the Internet as it evolves. Such a blindfolded steering both misses out on opportunities afforded by the Internet and its constant innovations, and risks blundering badly by ignoring the constraints that the same technology exerts as well as the unintended, indirect consequences of technically blind interventions that will most likely ensue. 

It is time to remember that ICANN is a technical coordination body through which knowledge about the coordinated identifiers of the Internet and the experience of the community around them is transmitted to the rest of the world, together with what we call the I* organizations, such as the IETF, ISOC, the RIRs, the ccTLDs, and a few others. And thus it is time to rally around the statement by made respected members of our community, Sally Costerton from ICANN, Paul Wilson from APNIC, and John Curran from ARIN, all of them also with many other contributions and representing relevant communities. 

Some organizations have decided not to sign the statement, not out of a different opinion, but in order not to legitimize the Global Digital Compact effort (yes, it is THAT bad.)

The action item that emerges is for every member of LACRALO to go to your organizations, raise awareness about this issue and how it is becoming critical and urgent, and also interveining with your authorities to make sure your governments do not act and vote in a direction that will be deleterious to the Internet as a whole. 

Alejandro Pisanty