Each year, ICANN's President and CEO works with the Executive team and the ICANN Board of Directors to develop a list of goals to address the most pressing issues before ICANN. This year, the goals are grouped thematically to focus on specific aspects of fulfilling ICANN's mission.
ICANN has entered a new fiscal year and is off to a busy start. Since fiscal year 2024 (FY24) began on 1 July 2023, ICANN has hosted a successful Africa Engagement Forum in Accra, Ghana, and made the new Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) available to ICANN-accredited registrars. Meanwhile, work continues to implement the New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program: Next Round.
For more on what ICANN will focus on this year, be sure to peruse the FY24 Operating Plan, which is available on the Financial and Planning Information page.
Improving Organizational Efficiency
Goal 1: Community Engagement System – Enhance and expand the use of the Community Engagement System to evolve stakeholder participation, improve staff efficiency, present all events in one place, and provide applicable reporting.
Goal 2: Community Readiness – Continue to improve ICANN org's cross-functional coordination to facilitate and support the community's work planning, workload management, and consensus-building processes to help bring about informed community participation in policy development and advice activities.
Increasing Digital Inclusivity
Goal 3: Coalition for Digital Africa – Expand the outreach of the Coalition for Digital Africa, together with partners and local stakeholders, to strengthen the African Internet infrastructure by deepening current initiatives and increasing partner participation in new and existing projects. Explore the feasibility and interest in developing similar coalitions in other regions.
Goal 4: Multilingual Internet – This goal is focused on key elements to enable and foster digital inclusivity through the next round of new gTLDs, Internationalized Domain Names, and increased awareness of the importance of Universal Acceptance.
Goal 5: ICANN Grant Program – Complete the implementation design to establish the ICANN Grant Program. The first call for applications is expected to launch by the end of March 2024 and remain open for 60 days, after which the application assessment process will begin. ICANN forecasts that the first slate of selected applications will be delivered to the Board for approval by November 2024.
Supporting and Promoting the Efficacy of the Multistakeholder Process
Goal 6: WSIS+20 Review – In 2025, the United Nations General Assembly will conduct a review of the progress made since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The outcome of this WSIS+20 Review has the potential to impact ICANN's mission, so ICANN will develop and implement a communications and engagement strategy to address this process.
Enhancing ICANN's Ability to Combat DNS Abuse
Goal 7: DNS Abuse – Continue to enhance how ICANN combats DNS abuse across several dimensions as it is a threat to Internet users' security and safety online. ICANN's Strategic Plan commits to improving the shared responsibility for upholding the security and stability of the DNS and working to identify and mitigate DNS security threats through greater engagement.
Supporting the Global Public Interest
Goal 8: Environmental Sustainability Strategy – Initiate the creation of ICANN's Environmental Sustainability Strategy. As ICANN's mission concerns the global Internet and the public interest, a commitment to environmental, social, and governance sustainability is in the public's interest. In FY24, ICANN will initiate the development of a comprehensive approach for implementing an environmental sustainability strategy for ICANN.
Supporting a Secure, Stable, and Resilient Internet
Goal 9: IANA Services – Evolve the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) services. The IANA functions are central to a secure, stable, and resilient Internet identifier ecosystem. While the IANA functions currently perform at a high level, it is important to plan and invest in the service in a manner that will allow for continuous improvement of these functions. The objective of this goal is to create a roadmap for the provision of a long-term, sustainable IANA functions.
Goal 10: African Regional Internet Registry – Collaborate and support the African Network Information Centre in coordination with the other Regional Internet Registries and global number registry policy development for the resiliency and functioning of the Internet Protocol numbers and autonomous system.
Goal 11: Community Reviews – Continue the management of ICANN Reviews, Specific and Organizational, and introduce refinements in the review process by the end of June 2024. This goal encompasses the objectives of the Lifecycle of Reviews Project.
Goal 12: Next Round of New gTLDs – Deliver to the Board an overall framework that includes an implementation plan for the New gTLD Program: Next Round and a pathway to opening the application round. The ICANN organization delivered the implementation plan to the Board in July and will update the Board on the progress of program implementation.
Goal 13: RDRS – Build, launch, and operate the Registration Data Request Service for up to two years for the purpose of collecting demand and usage data on a centralized ticketing system for nonpublic gTLD registration data requests.
Going forward, I will share periodic updates on our progress toward these goals.
