This week, the Board will be meeting remotely from 9 to 11 September to discuss and deliberate on several pressing issues. While the present circumstances continue to disrupt how the Board normally meets and conducts its business, it’s important that we keep our momentum and continue to make meaningful progress toward our goals and established priorities.
With ICANN69 now on the horizon, the Board is keenly focused on the important topics that will be widely discussed during the Annual General Meeting.
In August, the Final Report of the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on the Temporary Specification for Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Registration Data was submitted to the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council for its consideration. The Board will spend time thoroughly understanding the 22 recommendations outlined in the report as we prepare for receiving the GNSO Council’s decision. Similarly, the Draft Final Report of the GNSO’s New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Working Group was recently posted for Public Comment. The Board will be spending time to review the content of the report in detail, in anticipation of the final report being sent to the Board for our consideration.
As I outlined in my previous blog regarding the Board’s operational priorities, we are closely following the work of the third Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT3), which submitted its Final Report to the Board in June. The recommendations outlined in the report will help shape the community’s ongoing efforts to ensure that ICANN is prioritizing the right issues, with the right level of effort, at the right time, and with the right amount of resources. With so many activities happening at once, collaboration between the Board, ICANN org, and the community is all the more important. The ongoing efforts to enhance the effectiveness of our multistakeholder model will ensure that our processes and methods keep pace with ICANN’s ever-changing needs.
With so many important decisions ahead of us, it’s critical for the Board to have a firm understanding of how these decisions will impact ICANN’s ability to execute its mission in line with ICANN’s Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2021–2025. The Board is committed to continuously enhancing our accountability and transparency, as well as improving our processes and procedures. Part of this effort includes the Board’s self-evaluation that we conduct every other year, which is led by the Board Governance Committee. We’ll spend time during the workshop examining the results and discussing how the Board can evolve in the way we work together to meet not just the community’s needs but also those of the wider Internet governance ecosystem.
The past months have been extraordinary and unprecedented to us as a community and as individuals. This has resulted in a need for the ICANN Board, org, and community to come together to find innovative solutions to some of the most challenging circumstances imaginable.
Moments like these are where the multistakeholder model really shines, and I want to thank everyone for their efforts and contributions as we navigate this temporary normal.
We are all working together to deliver on our mission, which is a key part of how the global Internet functions. I am proud to be contributing to this mission alongside all of you.
I look forward to updating you on some of the key takeaways and highlights after our workshop has ended.
Source: ICANN BLOG