[bc-gnso] ICANN Expense Analysis: by Stakeholder Interest Area

[BC Secretariat]

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-3-29may09-en.htm

ICANN Expense Analysis: by Stakeholder Interest Area
29 May 2009

As one important element of transparency and accountability, ICANN strives 
to publish meaningful, accessible financial and operational information. 
Through its history, ICANN has consistently increased its financial 
reporting. Within the last 24 months, for example, ICANN developed monthly 
dashboard reporting on financial data. Earlier this year, the dashboard 
started to provide financial information by primary functions. See 
http://forms.icann.org/idashboard/public/.

In response to community requests to view ICANN's expenses in reports more 
aligned with stakeholder interest areas, ICANN has developed a new financial 
report: Expense Area Group (EAG) reporting. The categories depicted in this 
view of ICANN's budget are based on ICANN's organizational structure. 
http://www.icann.org/en/structure/

The attached paper [PDF, 272K]
http://www.icann.org/en/financials/eag-analysis-29may09-en.pdf
describes the Expense Area Group reporting, the analysis and methodology 
used to create these reports, and more information on cost accounting at 
ICANN.

This new EAG reporting is simply one more view of ICANN's finances, equal in 
importance with a functional representation, or a representation by ICANN's 
accounting codes. In fact, no single representation captures the 
fundamentally interconnected nature of ICANN's work and mission. ICANN is 
responsible for coordinating the Internet's unique identifiers at a global 
level, which is only possible when all of ICANN's organizational structures 
are working with each other, and on a global basis. Still, this EAG analysis 
should provide another useful way to understand the totality of ICANN's 
financial operation.

The community is encouraged to provide feedback on this new financial 
report, to help ensure that this type of reporting is responsive to the 
needs of the community. A comment period has been opened for feedback on the 
Expense Area Group reporting at this online forum and will remain open until 
after the Sydney meeting.
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat