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Emergency Assistance Program for Continued Internet Access

About | Eligibility | Selection Criteria | Important Links | Questions

About

ICANN's Emergency Assistance Program for Continued Internet Access allocates funding to provide Internet access and recovery for local populations during large-scale emergencies and disasters.

This program aims to positively impact the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet and management of the unique identifiers by making funds available to maintain accessibility when operators or other relevant actors might otherwise not have the resources to do so.

The ICANN organization (org) has selected three third-party emergency support organization(s) based on the outcome of an Expression of Interest process: Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), NetHope, and Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF).

As emergencies arise where ICANN could provide support, the ICANN org will coordinate with these organization(s) to identify if a monetary contribution would be appropriate in the specific instance. Funding under the Emergency Assistance Program will only be activated in response to specific crisis situations that meet established criteria and is subject to the availability of funds.

The program's total annual contributions will be up to USD $1,000,000.

Eligibility

Organization must be able to demonstrate their ability to meet the following requirements:

  • Eligible organizations shall be: (a) United States organizations recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code; (b) non-US organizations that demonstrate to ICANN's sole satisfaction the ability to obtain an equivalent determination to those organizations in clause (a); or (c) Intergovernmental Organization (IGOs) established pursuant to a treaty
  • Demonstrated ability to use contributions in a method that is consistent with ICANN's mission
  • Demonstrated experience implementing successful projects to provide Internet accessibility in emergencies in multiple regions around the globe
  • Demonstrated experience coordinating with the relevant authorities, humanitarian agencies, civil society organizations, and private-sector actors as appropriate
  • Demonstrated ability to meet tight timelines and provide periodic status updates, frequency to be determined
  • Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively (verbally and in writing) in English
  • The applicant organization, its subcontractors and their respective directors, trustees, officers, and managers (collectively, the "Organization") are not the subject of any U.S. sanctions or other applicable trade laws and regulations that would prohibit ICANN from engaging in dealings with the Organization
  • As necessary, provide information regarding the Organization sufficient for ICANN to verify ownership and control
  • Accurate, timely and complete response to information requests from ICANN for diligence purposes (failure to respond to ICANN's satisfaction by the date specified in the request may disqualify an organization from consideration for any contribution)

Selection Criteria

The decision to select any organization as an outcome of this EOI is based on, but not limited to, the following selection criteria:

  • Global experience and outreach
  • Financial health

  • Capability and experience, including qualifications and expertise in:

    • Providing Internet accessibility in emergency situations
    • Coordinating with the relevant authorities, humanitarian agencies, civil society organizations, and private-sector actors as appropriate

    • Providing support to relevant stakeholders for the Internet's Identifier Systems that are jeopardized in emergency situations

      • Note: Emergency support includes, but is not limited to, mitigation of risk and repairs to root server infrastructure, Internet exchange points, and ccTLD technical or operational infrastructure.
  • Proposed framework for future emergencies
  • Flexibility
  • Compliance with ICANN's conflicts of interest policy

Important Links

Questions?

See Frequently Asked Questions here. For more information, please contact emergency.assistance@icann.org.

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Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."