Public Policy Meeting (PPM) Dates

Details

Name of Proposal	Public Policy Meeting (PPM) Dates	Status:	Under Discussion
ID:	AFPUB-2026-GEN-003-DRAFT01	Date Submitted:	29/08/2026
Author(s):	Jordi Palet Martinez jordi.palet[at]theipv6company.com The IPv6 Company	Version:	1.0
Obsoletes:		Amends:	CPM

1. Summary of the problem being addressed by this proposal

Recent announcement of the next PPM raised a problem that never happened before in any RIR: The clash of the chosen dates with the IETF127 meeting in San Francisco, which dates and even location, have been announce several years in advance.

The norm, even if not written, has been to avoid such clashes because a number of participants on the RIR meetings also participate in the IETF meetings. This is also true even for RIRs staff.

The same is true if there is a clash with other RIR meetings, ISOC events, or even ICANN ones; may be also other standard development organizations. The reason for that is that many people participating in RIR meetings, not also participate in several RIRs, but also participate in IETF or other meetings. It is not just a matter of people in a given region, because each RIR community is global, not just constituted by the people in that region and the policy decisions impact all the Internet, the same way as IETF standards or ICANN policies impact in all the RIRs resource holders.

This is why since several decades ago, multiple organizations publish a public calendar of the community related events, such as:

Not avoiding those clashes creates several problems:

Participants need to choose, and possibly AFRINIC attendance may be impacted.
When AFRINIC decides after other events were fixed much ahead the AFRINIC one, it shows a lack of consideration towards the overall community and loss of reputation.
Participants discussing policy proposals may not be able to participate in the PPM. Even if the discussion also happens previously in the RPD list, clearly is not the same. This is even much worst if those participants are policy proposal author(s). They may not be presented by the original author(s), which will not be able to respond to questions or issues and highly impact in the community understanding of the proposal and co-chairs decision. It is true that the staff or other people may introduce the proposal, and even answer questions, but clearly this is not the same as if it is done by author(s) and creates a clear discrimination towards those proposals.
It goes against the goal of increasing participation and contribution of African’s in other organizations, such as IETF or ICANN.

Clearly all this is really ugly and terribly bad, it is a disrespect towards the global Internet community, and must be avoided. There is no excuse to find a better timing that avoid at least a clash with the main “sister organizations” (RIRs, IETF, ICANN, ISOC).

At the same time, the proposal tries to facilitate the traveling organization and reduce expenses for participants that may be able to book flights and hotels in advance.

2. Summary of how this proposal addresses the problem

This proposal adds a short section to just indicate that the PPMs can’t be held clashing with other “sister organizations”.

Proposal

3. Proposal

Add a sub-section, such as (for example) 3.4.3 and renumber the rest, as follows:

Current	Proposed
(doesn’t exist)	3.4.3 Public Policy Meeting (PPM) Dates Considering that the PPM is a key aspect of AFRINIC, and that the community is global, so participants frequently attend and contribute globally, the dates of the PPMs should be chosen avoiding a clash with previously announced meetings in the same dates of other “Sister Organizations”. “Sister Organizations” are the other RIRs, IETF, ICANN and ISOC. Whenever possible, it is also desirable avoiding the clash with other Internet-related events. In order to facilitate traveling organization for participants and reduce expenses, unless absolutely unavoidable, the dates and venue should be announced 1 year in advance.