2016-02-26

NETmundial Initiative, WEF and ICANN Withdrawal, Consequences

UPDATE: Comments of Larry Strickling (US Department of Commerce, NTIA) at the NETmundial Initiative meeting in Madrid (as reported by Samantha Dickinson):
UPDATE: The NETmundial Initiative (NMI) meeting in Madrid has concluded, and a Communique issued which includes the following points:
  • Funding by the founding 'partners' ICANN, World Economic Forum (WEF), and CGI.br ends June 30, 2016 [ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade announced at the meeting that the new ICANN CEO and the ICANN Board will determine at a later date whether to continue any funding beyond June 30th. Chehade also announced his resignation from the NMI Coordination Council effective March 13, 2016].
  • The Council considered and accepted a proposal for CGI.br to provide an institutional home for the ongoing initiative, subject to approval by CGI.br’s Board.  
  • The Council discussed the possibility of changing its current structure following a broad community consultation. 
  • The current open request for nominations to the Coordination Council is withdrawn. Once the public consultation is complete, a new nomination process will begin.  
  • Two activities were proposed for 2016, sponsorship for which has already been secured: (1) Document a set of good practices for national multistakeholder Internet governance structures and mechanisms; (2) Pilot the application of such practices in sub-Saharan Africa, including a conference to share learnings from pilot participants.
  • A follow-up meeting of the Coordination Council will be held in Brussels, Belgium, on 8 June 2016. 
[--end of UPDATE--]

NETmundial Initiative: "Council members are currently considering the future direction of the NETmundial Initiative, and will make decisions at the Council's face-to-face meeting in Madrid, Spain, on 26 February 2016. In the meanwhile the nomination process for a new Council announced previously is on hold pending the outcome of that meeting."

NETmundial Initiative Coordination Council, 2nd Face to Face Meeting, Madrid, Spain
Date: 26 Feb 2016 - Remote Participation: Adobe Connect Room.

AGENDA - times shown below are UTC:

08:00 - 08:30 Welcoming Remarks from Host, Co-Chairs Overview of Achievements.
Moderator: Eileen Donahoe

08:30 - 10:00 WEF [World Economic Forum] & ICANN Withdrawal: Financial & Political Consequences; Looking Forward - A quick reality check; value of NETmundial; order of magnitude of costs; potential new partners, etc. This session is meant to inform the next sessions.
Moderator: Jean-Jacques Subrenat
10:00 - 10:15 | Break

10:15 - 12:00 Moving Forward - Share and explore feasibility of ideas presented in the non-paper and subsequent CGI.br position paper; relationship with the IGF.
Moderator: Wolfgang Kleinwächter
12:00 - 13:30 | Lunch

Afternoon Agenda TBD - to be determined based on work of morning sessions
13:30 - 14:30
14:30 - 14:45 | Break
14:45 - 15:30
15:30 - 16:00 NMI Roadmap Post June 2016
Moderator: Marilia Maciel
16:00 - 16:15 | Approval of Communique

Background:
The NETmundial Initiative (NMI) was one of  ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehade's personal pet projects while on "ICANN's dime" (Fadi is Co-Chair, as is Jack Ma and others), reportedly funded (in part) by ICANN, though NMI has never received wide support from either the global internet community, nor the "ICANN community"--see NETmundial Initiative Lacks Backing, and ICANN Should Not Lead and other sources below. See also this ICANN Documentary Information Disclosure Policy Request (pdf) and Response (pdf).

See on Domain Mondo:
NetMundial Initiative (NMI) - (Wikipedia): "The NMI was launched in on 6 November 2014 in a
partnership between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Its Inaugural Coordination Council consisted of 23 members ... Leading up to and following the initial scoping meeting of NMI in Geneva, Switzerland in August 2014, several actors in the broader Internet governance ecosystem expressed concerns over NMI's proposed organization and activities. Concerns intensified following the official launch in November of that year. ISOC, the IAB and ICC BASIS published statements outlining their concerns ... According to Julia Pohle in the Global Policy Journal, there were three main controversial issues surrounding NMI raised by civil society and the technical community: permanent seats on the NMI Council, potential interference with the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and concern over disproportionate involvement in decision-making by economic and political elite. NMI retracted the notion of permanent seats on the Council, committed to supporting the efforts of the IGF and generated Internet Governance Process Principles to comprehensively address concerns regarding adherence to bottom-up, multistakeholder consensus-driven governance."

#netmundial



DISCLAIMER
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Domain Mondo archive