ICANN's "constituency silos" (was: Re: [governance] [igf_members] MAG Renewal)

[John Curran]

On May 20, 2013, at 4:12 PM, dave <dave at mail.difference.com.au> wrote:

> My point, John, is that I think no, Constituencies are NOT the problem,
> and the 'original structure' of ICANN that you describe positively (with
> its changes since, primarily the DNSO becoming a separate CCNSO and GNSO)
> maybe now is. I spend roughly 1 day of every ICANN week focussed on
> discussions with my constituency, and that seems roughly appropriate to me
> (though it always seems very full on the day. But the work performed within
> the GNSO silo is now such that, as an active member of the GNSO (I'm a
> councillor) I have very limited bandwidth for meeting with others (apart
> from socially outside of meeting times). The GNSO, the CCNSO, the GAC,
> ALAC, are all now busy enough that the meetings required of active members
> (such as GNSO councillors or constituency chairs) relegate discussion with
> the other major silos to usually something like a single 1 hour liaison
> meeting. 
> 
> I think that it can seem externally as if Constituencies are the issue -
> the way that public comments are generally seen as coming from a specific
> constituency etc may make it seem that way. And certainly much policy
> discussion does take place within constituencies in email etc. But the real
> work of policy development within ICANN is at the working group level,
> which generally have multiple constituencies represented. 

The DNS policy development process does not appear to reflect your assertion that 
"the real work of policy development within ICANN is at the working group level",
nor does it appear that such efforts actually improve understanding of the issues
sufficient to avoid have major policy decisions end up at the ICANN Board (which
is a particular strong indicator of a problem in this present policy development
process)

> Issue based meetings, especially ones that are broader than the usually
> very specific scope of a working group report, could potentially be very
> valuable. But we simply don't have much time for them. 

Understood, and that will always be the case regardless of structure and
process.

> There are, of course, problems with constituencies, and I feel fairly
> strongly that they shouldn't be used as a basis for allocation of resources
> in the way ICANN uses them now. But the siloization problem ICANN has isn't
> at the constituency level - it is at the level above. 

Dave - can you elaborate some on that final observation (i.e. "level above"?)

Thanks!
/John

Disclaimers:  My views alone.  Written whilst on vacation on the beach; replies
may be delayed or of limited coherence (depending on time of day ;-)



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