[rpd] Selection of PDP co-chairs - Secretariat recap & lessons learnt - English

[AFRINIC Policy Liaison]

**

*Dear PDWG,*

*

We would like to share with you a recap as well as some lessons learned
through our experience while facilitating the discussions of replacing
the PDWG Co-Chair. 


 1.

    The PDWG Co-Chair Replacement Recap:

 

6 February 2021: The recall committee submitted the outcome of its
recall request . The two co-chairs Abdulkarim Oloyede and Moses Serugo
were recalled effective 4 February 2021.  


10 February 2021: The Chairman of the Board encouraged the Policy
Development Working Group to find a way forward to fill these 2
vacancies that came as a result of the recall.

19 February 2021: Following requests from the PDWG members, AFRINIC, in
its role as secretariat to the PDWG, accepted to facilitate the
discussions.  

26 March 2021: The Board urged the PDWG to come together and  decide on
a way forward before the 10th of April to ensure a smooth PPM else the
board would have no choice than to intervene. AFRINIC, in its role as
PDWG Secretariat and facilitator, proposed a calendar of activities that
would allow the PDWG to complete its selection by April 9th 2021.


1 April 2021:The Call of Interest was opened for the nomination of
candidates for the 2 co-chair positions and Nomcom2021 was contacted to
provide support on the process as requested by the PDWG. Nomcom2021
informed AFRINIC that they will be available from April 8th 2021.

4 April 2021:    The Call for nominations was closed

5 April 2021: AFRINIC, in its role as PDWG Secretariat and facilitator,
informed the PDWG that 6 nominations were received and encouraged the
PDWG to map the way forward with the selection of their co-chairs

7 April 2021: AFRINIC, in its role as PDWG Secretariat and facilitator,
announced that the verifications of the nominations with the nominators
and seconders was ongoing

8 April 2021 : AFRINIC, in its role as PDWG Secretariat and facilitator,
informed the community that 2 of the candidates nominators had not given
their consent to be nominators, one candidate had only one nominator.
These candidates Namely Widjane Goubi , Anthony Ikechukwu Uba and Elvis
Ibeanusiwere all disqualified due to failure to comply with the process.
  The other 3 candidates’ nominators and seconders had responded
positively during the verification exercise making Darwin da Costa,
Vincent Ngundi  and Abdulkarim Oloyede the only legitimate candidates. 

AFRINIC shared the list of candidates as well as discussed criteria on
the PDWG to the Nomcom2021 for further processing.

9 April 2021 :  The nominee Abdulkarim Oloyede rejected his nomination 


9 April 2021 : the Nomcom2021 informed AFRINIC, in its role as
secretariat and facilitator,  that they could observe a general
consensus of the PDWG towards selection of the co-chairs based on
criteria and term limits


9 April 2021 : AFRINIC in its role as Secretariat and facilitator to the
PDWG, sent a summary of the status on the 9th of April with the options
the PDWG members were discussing. 


9 April to 10 April 2021: The PDWG members showed support to a proposal
by a PDWG member to have Mr. Darwin da Costa and Mr. Vincent Ngundi
serve as co-chairs till the first PPM of 2022 and the first PPM of 2023
respectively. The PDWG discussed the CPM aspects of the proposal however
there was a clear rough consensus from the PDWG in support for the
proposal.

10 April 2021 : AFRINIC in its role as Secretariat and facilitator
informed the Board of the decision of the PDWG. For practical reasons,
the PDWG recommended tenure of 2 years for Mr Vincent Ngundi and 1 year
for Mr Darwin da Costa respectively. The Board took note of the wish of
the PDWG and proceeded accordingly by  passing a resolution to confirm
its approval, as an exceptional measure, of the selected Co-chairs for
the proposed tenure lengths starting from April 10th 2021.

The Chairman of the Board congratulated the Policy Development Working
Group (PDWG) on taking a consensus-based approach at selecting the 2 new
co-chairs.

 

 2.

    Lessons learnt as Facilitator 


  *

    Nomination Verification:We would like to apologise to the PDWG for
    sharing the information of the nominations and nominators before
    validating with the concerned parties. We did not expect that some
    of the nominees would deviate this far. This was definitely a lesson
    well learnt.


  *

    Removal of information:We wish to also inform you that we received
    two requests for removing some specific information from the
    archives of our mailing list. As it currently stands, for historical
    accuracy, the archives can not be altered, however, to be fair to
    the affected  parties, we would like  the PDWG to note the following:

  *

    The  indicated nominator on the form for the candidate Wijdane Goubi
    has requested their data to be  removed from the rpd mailing list as
    their data was shared without their permission. 

  *

    Abdulkarim Oloyede has requested the AFRINIC Secretariat to remove
    all the information shared about his nomination as it was shared
    without his permission.

  *

    Peak in new subscriptions on the list: We, as secretariat, have
    observed a peak in the number of subscriptions on the rpd mailing
    list towards the end of the discussions and after the final
    communication from the board on the 10th April 2021. These accounts
    have posted only once on the list attacking the legitimacy of the
    process and PDWG consensus. It is noteworthy that we saw several
    accounts registering from the same residential IP address.

  *

    Onboarding as  PDWGThere seems to be attempts to destabilise the
    future of the PDWG by  propagating distorted images of what
    community discussions and rough consensus are truly about. With
    Newcomers and African Youth believing in these unfounded distorted
    images, the confusion around all matters that are discussed on the
    rpd mailing list will persist for a long time. AFRINIC plans on
    holding a session on diversity and inclusion during the upcoming AIS
    meeting as well as a series of upcoming webinars to see how we can
    better onboard our African youth and make sure that their
    contributions help us build together the future of the digital
    economy in Africa.

We finally take this opportunity to thank the PDWG for their continued
support and contribution.  We trust that the PDWG will support the
co-chairs in their role and continue to put in their efforts at building
a healthy environment for resource policies to be developed in
accordance with the bottom-up principle.



Regards

*

-- 
AFRINIC Policy Liaison.
t: +230 403 51 00 | f: +230 466 6758 | tt: @afrinic | w:www.afrinic.net
facebook.com/afrinic | flickr.com/afrinic | youtube.com/afrinicmedia

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/rpd/attachments/20210412/f9270b3c/attachment-0001.html>