[Chapter-delegates] ICANN Support for African gTLD applicants

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

Hello Joly,
Hello Annalisa,

why restrict it to a specific continent, bearing in mind some African
countries have a much higher GDP per capita than others?

I would have suggested this to be non-geographic and based on GDP per
capita or some other metric showing mean individual wealth level. In
this way, developing countries elsewhere would also qualify.

Warm regards,

Olivier

Le 13/07/2010 08:40, Joly MacFie a écrit :
> At the North American Regional At-Large Organization (NARALO)
> teleconference yesterday Annalisa Rogers of ISOC-SF raised the topic
> of the statement of the African ICANN community at ICANN38 in
> Brussels.  It asks for support of African gTLD applicants, mainly
> civil society, NGOs and non for profit organizations, but also for
> entrepreneurs, given the developing state of the continent's digital
> economy.
> http://www.atlarge.icann.org/announcements/announcement-24jun10-en.htm
>
> Specifically the support to be provided to applicants of new gTLDs in
> Africa should include, but not be limited to the following:
>
> *Financial, by reducing the application and the on-going fees
> ** Waiving the cost of Program Development ($26k).
> ** Waiving the Risk/Contingency cost ($60k).
> ** Lowering the application cost ($100k)    (from $185k)
> ** Waiving the Registry fixed fees ($25k per calendar year), and
> charge the Registry-Level Transaction Fee only ($0.25 per domain name
> registration or renewal).
> ** The reduced cost to be paid incrementally, which will give the
> African applicants more time to raise money, and investors will be
> more encouraged to fund an application that passes the initial
> evaluation.
>
> *Linguistic, by translating all the application documents, especially
> the Applicant Guidebook, in the six UN languages
>
> *Legal, by assisting the applicants in preparing their applications properly.
>
> *Technical, by
> ** helping the applicants to define the infrastructure options,
> ** addressing the issue of infrastructure problems in some African
> countries; such as IPV6, internet connectivity etc.
>
> Annalisa is drafting a statement of support on behalf of NARALO.
>
> I am thinking this is something that many chapters might want to
> support 1) individually, 2) through their local At-Large
> Organizations, and 3) by lobbying their local representatives on the
> ICANN Government Advisory Committee (GAC).
>
> Annallisa, please circulate the wording of your support letter here when ready.
>
> joly
>
>   

-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html