[rpd] Accountability assessment - PDP review?

[Dewole Ajao]

Thank you for your inputs, Omo (and others).

Each of the draft policy proposals at 
http://www.afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development/policy-proposals 
is a solution to an existing or foreseen problem as observed from the 
authors' viewpoint(s).

To my knowledge, all proposals updated by their authors after the last 
public policy meeting have been duly returned to the mailing list by the 
co-chairs for further discussion. The quality of the resulting discourse 
is however dependent on the authors, the rest of the PDWG, and 
willingness to engage on the (granular) substance of the proposals 
rather than personal or ideological differences.

At any point in time, the Policy Development Working Group (i.e. all who 
CHOOSE to participate on the RPD mailing list and/or in person at the 
public meetings) has the opportunity to provide feedback on the policy 
proposals. Authors of policy proposals can choose to incorporate the 
feedback received to produce an improved proposal that the majority of 
the community is (more) amenable to.

I recommend that as a community, we should:
seek solutions that are (roughly) acceptable
rather than
seek to impose our point of view (no matter how correct they may be) on 
everyone else.

ALL OF US (policy authors or not) should channel our input toward 
solutions that build consensus rather than simplistically adding +1s and 
-1s on completely divergent points of view. Since we (supposedly) all 
have the best interests of the AFRINIC community at heart, we should 
seek to unite rather than divide. Operating in this manner, we would 
find that #3 and #4 as listed in the preceding emails are actually 
non-issues.

Regards,
Dewole Ajao.
PDWG co-Chair

On 25/10/2016 09:05, Omo Oaiya wrote:
>
> Dear Community,
>
> I am not suggesting there is a problem with the PDP per se or 
> criticising the co-chairs, past or present, but recent discussions on 
> accountability and co-authoring a policy proposal has resulted in my 
> taking a closer look at the PDP and its requirements.
>
> The current PDP 
> (http://www.afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development/251-policy-development-process-in-the-afrinic-service-region-afpub-2010-gen-005) 
> adopted in 2010 specified improvements from its predecessor.
>
> It lists fixing the following issues amongst others as incentive:
>
>  1. the case of PDP moderators inability to attend public policy meetings
>  2. the lack of appeal mechanisms against moderators actions
>  3.  issues fixed on mailing list being reopened at face to face
>     meetings weakening the decision making process.
>  4. consensus building process leading to scenario where opinions
>     expressed at face to face have more weight that the ones expressed
>     on mailing list
>
> While the new PDP succeeded in addressing #1 and #2, it has not 
> addressed #3 and #4.
>
> The current PDP introduced the PDWG with co-chairs to perform the 
> "administrative functions” of the group.
>
> - It did not describe what these administrative functions were.
>
> - It did not prescribe criteria for co-chairs selection or an election 
> mechanism.
>
> - It also did not describe the process for determining “rough consensus”.
>
> As a result, we have seen:
>
> - co-chairs candidates who could be more familiar with PDP and 
> Internet Number Resource management.
>
> - insufficient moderation of policy proposal discussions on the 
> mailing list and at face to face meetings leading to endless 
> repetitive discussions
>
> - inability of co-chairs to determine consensus encouraging abuse of 
> the process with some people persistently opposing proposals and 
> stalling progress with insubstantial arguments causing unnecessary 
> delay and frustration
>
> The policy discussions at AFRINIC-24 is a perfect illustration.  
> Another easy example is that since AFRINIC-24, there has been little 
> discussion on proposals which were sent back on mailing list for 
> further discussions as per meeting minutes 
> (http://www.afrinic.net/en/library/policies/archive/ppm-minutes/1847-afrinic-24-pdwgpdp-minutes) 
> and no action from the working group co-chairs.
>
> **Some questions for the community and co-chairs**
>
> - How do we fix issues #3 and #4?
>
> - Will the proposals returned to the list be presented in AFRINIC-25? 
> if yes, what will be the discussion points be and for which expected 
> outcomes?
>
> -Omo
>
>
>
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