Helping the community develop policies
01/02/2016
LACNIC has created new instruments to encourage members of the Internet community to participate in developing and modifying the policies implemented in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The initiatives promoted last year in an attempt to achieve greater community participation include the so called policy shepherds program and a list of improvements.
The community’s proposals are an essential part of LACNIC’s services, as it is through this process that the creation and modification of existing policies are validated.
The goal of the policy shepherds initiative is to help new authors submit new policy proposals. “Because they have never drafted a proposal, new authors might need some assistance. Policy shepherds offer guidance to those who feel they might need it,” explained Gianina Pensky, Policy Officer at LACNIC.
Policy shepherds are individuals who have experience in the Policy Development Process and can help new authors. In 2015, there were two cases: Nicholas Antoniello shepharded policy “2.3.2.18 Trigger 2.3.2.18 when a justified request larger than /22 is received which can not be allocated from any remaining pool of addresses at LACNIC,” while Juan Peirano served as shepherd to policy proposal “Inter-RIR transfers.”
Another tool designed to promote a more active response from the community on specific topics is the List of Policy Improvements (http://www.lacnic.net/web/lacnic/lista-de-mejoras-politicas).
According to Pensky, the goal is to create synergy among the community for the creation of new policies, hoping that, together, those listing possible improvements and those reading them can find potential solutions which may be submitted in the form of a policy proposal.
The current list of improvements includes editing the Policy Manual to correct policies which are no longer applicable, defining ASN and IPv6 transfers in the Policy Manual, removing the multi-homing requirement for End Users, reserving IPv4 address space for critical infrastructure, and shortening last call for comments.
Subscribe to the policy mailing list and stay up to date with all the latest news on policy development in the LAC region: https://mail.lacnic.net/mailman/listinfo/politicas