Dear UASG colleagues,

During the upcoming Internet Governance Forum in Berlin there will be a Dynamic Coalition main session on Day 3 – or Thursday, Nov 28 – which will focus on how work of the 18 different Dynamic Coalitions advances the Sustainable Development Goals. The Dynamic Coalition on DNS Issues (DC-DNSI) is anticipating to participate during this main session to advocate for UA-readiness.

DC-DNSI members briefly discussed linking UA-readiness with Sustainable Development Goal 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), and specifically the Target 9C, namely to “significantly increase access to information and communications technology.”

The argument we are interested in making is that UA-readiness is a contributory factor of “Infrastructure for Digital Inclusion.”

The organizing team wants to engage the collective wisdom of this group to test underlying assumptions involved in linking UA-readiness with this SDG, i.e. whether UA-readiness:

• is a component or an aspect of “resilient infrastructure,”
• promotes inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and/or
• fosters innovation.

Further, would UA-readiness significantly increase access to information and communications technology?

SDG 9 “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.”

Target 9C “Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020.” 

Accordingly, we are seeking input on the following questions:

1. Is UA-readiness a component or aspect of “resilient infrastructure”?  If yes, how?  If no, why not?
2. Does UA-readiness promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization?  If yes, how?  If no, why not?
3. Does UA-readiness foster innovation? If yes, how?  If no, why not?
4. Would UA-readiness significantly increase access to information and communications technology? If yes, how?  If no, why not?

Please provide, where possible, supporting arguments and illustrations.  Feel free to share your thoughts on or off list.  If you elect to share them privately with the organizing team (Nik Smith (nsmith@verisign.com), Dennis Tan Tanaka (dtantanaka@verisign.com), Melinda Clem (mclem@afilias.info) and/or Susan Chalmers (schalmers@ntia.gov) ) we will share anonymize and summarize the responses with the list to build discussion.

Thank you, and please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Mark Svancarek