Independent review of the ICANN Address Supporting Organization (ASO)

Deadline for applications: 31 December 2016
Deadline announcement of the selected bid: 31 January 2017

Instructions to Bidders

1. Introduction

1. The Number Resource Organization (NRO) is the organization comprised of the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) which act collectively on matters relating to the interests of the RIRs and the Internet numbers community.

2. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation with a mission to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet’s unique identifier systems. In service of this mission and as agreed with the NRO, ICANN provides registration services for IP addresses and related numeric Internet identifiers and ratifies global number policies.

3. The Address Supporting Organisation (ASO) is the body specified in the ICANN Bylaws which advises the ICANN Board with respect to policy issues relating to the operation, assignment and management of Internet addresses.

4. Under the ASO MoU signed between the ICANN and the NRO , the two organizations agree that the NRO fulfills the role, responsibilities and functions of the ASO as defined within the ICANN bylaws.. Under the terms of this MoU, the NRO shall provide a periodic review of the ASO’s effectiveness within ICANN.

5. The NRO is seeking to appoint an independent consultant to undertake a review of the ASO as detailed below.

2. Objective, timeline and estimated efforts

1. The objective of the review is to determine whether the ASO has a continuing purpose in the ICANN structure, and if so, whether any change in structure or operations of the ASO is desirable to improve its effectiveness in the ICANN structure, and additionally whether the ASO is accountable to the Internet number community when carrying out its responsibilities.

2. The scope of the review shall include all functions undertaken by the ASO in support of ICANN, and in particular with regards to global number policy development and the appointment of individuals to various ICANN bodies including the ICANN Board. Additional known tasks undertaken by the ASO in support of ICANN should be included in the review (such as the development of procedures to make appointments to other ICANN bodies), any questions regarding scope of the review will be determined by the NRO Executive Committee (NRO EC).

3. The review is due to begin in 10 February 2017. While a full project timeline should be developed by applicants as an integral part of their bid, the following key milestones are anticipated:

1. 10 February 2017. Beginning of operations. Initial briefing.
2. 20 February – 2 March 2017. APNIC 43, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Interviews.
3. 11-16 March 2017. ICANN 58 meeting, Copenhagen, Denmark. Interviews.
4. 2 – 5 April 2017. ARIN 39, New Orleans, LA, USA. Interviews.
5. 30 April 2017. Progress report.
6. 8 – 12 May 2017. RIPE 74, Budapest, Hungary. Interviews.
7. 22 – 26 May 2017. LACNIC 26, TBC, Brazil. Interviews.
8. 21 May- 2 June 2017. AFRINIC 26, Nairobi, Kenya. Interviews
9. 21 June 2017. Delivery of draft final report to the NRO EC
10. 28 June 2017. Presentation of draft final report ICANN 59, Johannesburg South Africa
11. 31 July 2017. Presentation of Final Report.

4. The review is expected to absorb between four and five working months over approximately six calendar months. Substantial deviations from this estimation are to be justified in the applicant’s bid.

3. Methodology of work

1. The ASO review is expected to be largely based on qualitative analysis, and to include a data gathering, a data analysis and validation, and a final reporting phase. Different approaches can be proposed by applicants, and should be adequately justified.

2. During data gathering the contractor to be selected will be required to undertake documental analysis and a significant series of individual interviews with members of the global ICANN and RIR communities. Targeted interviewees should include a wide range of stakeholders representing a diversity of interests, sectors, geographical locations, and economic and social conditions. In order to facilitate this evidence gathering phase, the consultant to be selected will be invited to attend a series of RIR and/or ICANN public meetings, where a large number of interested individuals tend to assemble, and can be interviewed face to face.

3. Further distance interviews would be directly organized by the contractor via electronic or remote means; and applicants are invited to specify in their offer the further mechanisms that they envisage to use to allow inputs during data gathering from the larger communities of interest.

4. Applicants are encouraged to propose the use of further data collection tools that they might consider appropriate as to integrate evidence, and suitable to reach a globally and culturally diverse and distributed set of stakeholders. Applicants are invited to describe in their offer the approach that they deem the most appropriate for data analysis and validation of findings and conclusions, and to describe the mechanisms that they plan to use as to involve the structure under review in validation of findings and conclusions.

4. Steering of the review and reporting

1. The contractor to be selected will report to the Chair of the NRO.

2. At the end of each calendar month the contractor to be selected will be required to produce a short report (one-two pages), underlining achievements against plans and, when available, early findings.

3. By the date indicated in 2.3.9 the contractor will issue a draft Final Report, containing description of findings and its full conclusions and recommendations.

4. No later than two weeks from the reception of this draft, the NRO EC will inform the contractor of its intention to either approve the report in this version, or will request it to address any specific concerns before its approval. In this last case, the contractor will be given not less than two weeks to address the concerns raised by the NRO EC.

5. Format of the offers

1. Interested consultants and consulting firms are invited to submit their offer for the present ASO review. In order to allow comparison of the different offers that will be received, the NRO invites applicants to structure their bid as follows:

Section 1 – Understanding of the assignment. Applicants are invited to describe their own comprehension of the work to be carried out, including their understanding of the Internet numbers community, ICANN’s function in supporting the Internet numbers community, and the ASO role and responsibilities within ICANN.
Section 2 – Qualification of the bidding organization and of the key experts proposed to conduct the assignment. Applicants are requested to describe their qualification to carry out the ASO review, providing precise description and reference to their experience in assessing effectiveness and performances of national and international organizations; in reviewing structures and processes involving a globally diverse and distributed set of stakeholders; and in offering advice to guide processes of organizational change. Relevant research conducted and publications, if any, should also be included;
Section 3 – Methodology of work and tools. The applicants will describe in this section their methodological approach to the review of ASO, with indication of selected tools and expected efforts (in working days) per each phase of the review. A detailed time plan will ideally complete the section.
Section 4 – Financial offer. Criteria for the formulation of the financial offer can be found in following section 7
Annex: full CVs of key staff / consultants proposed to conduct the Review, proving the suitability for the proposed work of all the selected experts (max length of each CV: 3 pages). Role to be played by each individual expert has to be specified.

2. Bids for this assignment may be submitted by consulting firms, networks of individual consultants and consortia of consulting firms. Bids submitted by networks of individual consultants, and consortia of consulting firms shall clearly identify a consortium leader, holding all responsibilities towards the NRO EC for the correct fulfillment of all the contractual obligations resulting in the eventuality of a contract awarding.

6. Contract Compliance

Applicants should warrant that they are willing to operate under a nondisclosure agreement.

7. Formulation of the financial offer

1. Financial figures shall be expressed in US Dollars.

2. The financial offer is to be formulated as an overall lump sum of the consulting fees requested for the carrying out of the full assignment. An approximate estimation of the working days needed to conduct the assignment shall be provided, as well. Consulting fees shall include direct costs such as communication, consumables, use of computer equipment and other minor expenses.

3. The NRO will furthermore reimburse the contractor the following costs, which are not to be included in the applicants’ financial offer:

• Return travels of two members of the consulting team to participate in defined meetings, as approved; planned travels shall be taken in economy class.
• Hotel (pre-paid by the NRO) and full meal costs for the participation to the meetings.
• Further reasonable travel expenses, if deemed necessary for the fulfillment of the assignment, provided that they will be approved in advance in writing by the NRO EC.

8. Requests for clarification and contacts during the bidding period

1. Requests for clarification can be addressed until 31 December, 2016 only to the Chair of the NRO (chair [at] nro [dot] net). Requests for clarification and their answers will be made anonymous and published at the NRO webpage [www.nro.net] in order to ensure equal treatment of all bidders.

2. Any other direct contact with RIRs or ICANN staff during the bidding period, related to the present Request for Proposal is strongly and expressly discouraged, will not be answered and might lead to disqualification of the bidder.

9. Proposal assessment – awarding of the contract

1. Proposals will be assessed by the NRO EC with the use of the assessment grid enclosed as Annex-1 to the present document.

2. Each members of the NRO EC will score each proposal received, and a final average grid will be produced for each proposal, accompanied by a note resuming verified references of the three bidders scoring with the highest marks.

3. At the end of the evaluation process the NRO EC will publish the proposal of the winner bid and the names of all bidders.

4. Deadline for selection of the winner bid is 31 January 2017.

10. Deadline for the submission of the offers and their validity

1. In order to be considered valid, offers shall be sent by 31 December 2016 to the chair of the NRO at chair [at] nro [dot] net in Adobe pdf format. A confirmation email will be sent for each proposal received before the expiring of the deadline.

2. Offers sent in observance of the present Request for Proposals shall remain valid for a period of six months after the deadline mentioned in previous Chapter

ANNEX-1: Proposal Assessment Grid

Bidder:

Name of proposal evaluator:
Max score [M]
Evaluator’s score [S]
Minimum threshold [T]

Understanding of the assignment [M=25] [S=0] [T=15]
– Understanding of the Review Objective 15
– Understanding of the NRO, the ASO and ICANN and their mandates 10

Qualification of bidder [M=40] [S=0] [T=25]
– Previous similar activities for national / local organizations 5
– Previous similar activities for other international organizations 10
– Previous similar activities carried out within ICANN or the NRO 5
– Geographic and cultural diversity, multilingualism, gender balance 10
– Suitability of proposed CVs 10

Proposed methodology and tools [M=55] [S=0] [T=30]
– Suitability of timetable 10
– Work organization and methodological approach 15
– Suitability of proposed data gathering tools 15
– Suitability of proposed data analysis / validation methods 15

Financial offer [M=20] [S=0] [T=10]
– Max efforts respected or acceptably justified in case of deviations? 10
– Overall value for money? 10

OVERALL SCORE [M=140] [S=0] [T=75]

We are pleased to announce that Filiz Yilmaz was re-elected to the Number Resource Organization Number Council (NRO NC) at a Plenary session of the RIPE 73 Meeting in Madrid on 28 October 2016.

On the completion of her current term on 31 December 2016, Filiz will go on to serve another three-year term from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2019.

Details on the election process and the NRO NC are available.

We would like to congratulate Filiz on her appointment and thank her for her excellent work in representing RIPE during her previous tenure on the NRO NC.

The AFRINIC Board of Directors has appointed Fiona Asonga to the ASO AC / NRO NC. Mrs. Asonga’ term will start on January 1 2017.

ARIN is pleased to announce that Jason Schiller has been re-elected to the Number Resource Organization Number Council (NRO NC) from the ARIN region. He will begin serving another three-year term on 1 January 2017. Information on the NRO Number Council can be found at:

https://www.nro.net/about-the-nro/the-nro-number-council

The ARIN Board of Trustees wishes to thank Robert Kenny for his participation as a candidate in the NRO NC election and looks forward to his continued involvement in ARIN regional activities.

During APNIC 42 Meeting in Colombo Sri Lanka, APNIC community  has elected Brajesh Jain to the Number Resource Organization Number Council (NRO NC). He will begin serving a two year term from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2018. Mr Jain will replace Dr Ajay Kumar.

On 23 August, the ARIN Board of Trustees appointed Kevin Blumberg to serve on the Number Resource Organization Number Council (NRO NC) from the ARIN region, filling the vacancy created by John Sweeting¹s resignation. Kevin¹s term will run through 31 December 2016.

Information on the NRO Number Council can be found at: https://www.nro.net/about-the-nro/the-nro-number-council

In accepting his appointment, Kevin has resigned from the ARIN Advisory Council effective immediately. His seat will be filled during the upcoming ARIN elections. ARIN wishes to thank Kevin for his years of service as a member of the Advisory Council and his service as Advisory Council Vice-Chair.

Regards,

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)

Helsinki, Finland – 29 June 2016. The RIRs and ICANN signed the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the IANA Numbering Services today at ICANN 56 in Helsinki, Finland. This agreement documents the arrangements for provision by ICANN of IANA numbering services, after the IANA stewardship transition which is expected to occur on 30 September 2016. The SLA will only come into effect with the transition, and will have no effect whatsoever before that time.

This event is a significant milestone in the long process of transition planning which started in March 2014 with US Government announcement. The process involved huge efforts by the Internet number community collectively, and by teams formed specifically to carry out the work.

In particular the NRO Executive Council expresses its sincere thanks for the contribution by CRISP members during the last year and a half in the IANA Stewardship Transition Process. The CRISP Team worked tirelessly to integrate and consolidate the views from the five different regional communities into a single proposal. As the work of the CRISP team is now finally complete, we hereby announce that the team is formally dissolved.

Finally the NRO EC also wishes acknowledge the support of the ICANN Board and staff who worked hard with us to finalise the SLA and ensure it was completed on time.

The final version of the SLA is available at: http://www.nro.net/sla

The ASO AC is pleased to announce that Maemura Akinori has been elected to serve for a three-year term on Seat 10 of the ICANN Board of Directors.

Maemura Akinori’s term will start right after the conclusion of the ICANN 57 Meeting that will be held in Hyderabad in November 2016.

A brief biography of Mr Maemura is available on the ASO website at:

https://aso.icann.org/maemura-akinori/

The ASO AC would like to thank all the candidates who devoted their time to this selection process and for their willingness to serve on the ICANN Board.

Seat 10 is currently filled by Kuo-Wei Wu. The ASO AC would like to thank Kuo-Wei Wu for his 6 years of service in the ICANN Board representing the Internet numbers community’s interests and concerns

Mr Maemura’s appointment followed a lengthy selection process, which included a public call for nominations, a public comment period, interviews with all candidates, and two rounds of voting sessions in which all eligible ASO Address Council members participated.

Along with the election results, full details of the process, including information of all candidates, are available on the 2016 ASO AC election page .

11 March 2016, Marrakech, Morocco – An historic proposal for the global community to assume stewardship of the IANA functions, produced after nearly two years of work by the global Internet community, has been delivered to the U.S. Government for its consideration. The proposal would remove U.S. Government oversight over a set of fundamental Internet administrative functions, including management of the global pool of Internet number resources (IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and Autonomous System Numbers), and replace it with a set of arrangements for community-based oversight.

The proposal, developed by the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG), is based on input from three operational communities, including the Internet Number Community (those with an interest in the global management of Internet number resources). The contributions of the Internet Number Community were coordinated via a Consolidated RIR IANA Stewardship Proposal (CRISP) Team made up of community members drawn from each of the five RIR regions. CRISP Team Chair Izumi Okutani said:

“The discussions that have taken place over the last two years have been a showcase for the kind of bottom-up, community-driven processes that are a central feature of the Internet Number Community. This approach has been fundamental in making the Internet a truly global resource. It is very satisfying to see the input of so many stakeholders explicitly reflected in the ICG’s proposal, and I believe that the solution presented here successfully meets the needs of the Internet Number Community, and of all IANA stakeholders.”

The ICG proposal includes mechanisms for stewardship of the number-related IANA functions, as developed by the Internet Number Community. These mechanisms include a contractual Service Level Agreement signed by the RIRs (as stewards of these functions) and ICANN (as the entity responsible for management of the functions). More information on this aspect of the proposal is available here.

While the ICG published the final draft of its proposal in October 2015, elements of the proposal relied upon the adoption of a set of recommendations regarding the accountability of ICANN to its community. These recommendations were developed separately by a Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG) and were adopted by the ICANN Board at its meeting this week in Marrakech, Morocco. The Board was at that point able to pass on both the ICG and CCWG documents to the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the U.S. Government.

“The events of this week, here at ICANN 55 in Marrakech, represent another significant step in the long process to better operationalize the global community’s shared stewardship of the IANA functions,” said Number Resource Organization Chair and LACNIC CEO Oscar Robles. “We have not reached the end of this process yet, and we respect the attention that the U.S. Government must give to this proposal before making what will be a historic decision.

At this point though, we recognize the achievement that this proposal represents: a huge, global community of people from different sectors and stakeholder groups has achieved agreement on a complex plan to achieve something of huge importance. It is something about which we, as a community, should feel justifiably proud, and it is a testament to the effectiveness of the multistakeholder model.

The Regional Internet Registries have publicly supported the progressive steps taken by the U.S. Government over the years to reduce its oversight of global Internet administrative functions. Since the NTIA’s announcement in 2014, we have been pleased to help facilitate our communities’ contributions to this important IANA stewardship transition process. We now stand ready to work with ICANN and all of the IANA stakeholders towards full implementation of the ICG and CCWG proposals.”

The U.S. Government will now review the proposal to ensure that it meets the criteria set out by the NTIA when they first announced their intention, in March 2014, to pass stewardship of the IANA functions to the global community. If approved, the RIRs and ICANN will continue their work towards implementation of the proposal, which will be completed prior to the expiration of ICANN’s current contract with NTIA in September 2016.

Communication to IANA-XFER mailing confirming the ASO Approval to CCWG Final Report

=======
Dear Colleagues,

In response to a recommendation from the ASO liaisons to the CCWG, the NRO EC, acting on behalf of the ASO, has approved the CCWG WS1 report published at https://community.icann.org/x/8w2AAw

As the Chair of the NRO EC I sent the following message to one of the Co-Chairs of the CCWG:

———
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2016 06:42:53 -0300

Dear León,

As a designated Chartering Organization of the CCWG, the ASO states its support for the Final Report of the CCWG WS1. We therefore ask ICANN to accept this document, along with the ICG proposal for IANA Stewardship Transition, for approval during the ICANN 55 meetings in Marrakech. The two proposals should then be forwarded to the US Government for their review, without further delay.

Oscar Robles
Chair, NRO Executive Committee
for the ASO