Dear All: While this proposal is laudable, I would urge more refinement before it is presented. The situation is a lot more complex than it appears. I don't know for Spanish-speaking Central American Nations but for the English Speaking Caribbean in general and members of CARICOM which includes Suriname and Haiti, this is what should be known.

From my then position a ranking university officer in arguably the largest university in the Caribbean and beginning when she was the ALAC Chair, Jacqueline Morris and I engaged in widespread outreach across the Caribbean. We utilised connections from activities in the tertiary education systems of the region, my contacts as the registry operator and registrar for dotjm ccTLD and other organisations to which I am attached, like CIVIC. Some success was achieved, resulting in some connections to ICANN at various levels.

Representatives from St Lucia, Haiti, Belize, Antigua & Barbuda have attended ICANN meetings, several as Fellowships. Some have shown interest in other constituencies like the GAC and ccNSO. A few of these have even become active members of the ccNSO. Several attempts have been made to form ALS in a few countries. These were led mostly from colleagues in the tertiary-level education institutions; Max Larson Henry at the State University of Haiti, Juan Carlos Namis at the University of Belize, Deirdre Williams at Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in St Lucia and colleagues in St Vincent and the Grenadines. These have foundered largely because of apathy. True, we could have encouraged certification even with such thin active support. We choose not to. The point is we want both representation and active participation. In this area I'm fully in support of the Chair's views recently expressed. Then there is the accounting of the countries without ALS. A lot of the territories that are listed in the proposal are actually of residual colonial status. For AT-Large consideration, these are properlyEURALO; the Cayman Islands, Turks & Caicos, Montserrat, Anguilla, the ABC Islands and St. Maarten connected to The Netherlands and the French departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Martin etc. among them. Some of you might begin to understand the rationale for the recommendations from the Geographic Regions WG of which I am a member. The intent of the proposal is laudable. Its construction however is mismatched to purpose. Kind regards, -Carlton ============================== Carlton A Samuels Mobile: 876-818-1799 *Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround* =============================