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Executive Committee meets in Bern
2008-05-11
Each year IFRTD's Executive Committee meets as the network highest governing body to discuss future plans as well as reflect and report on the past year. While last year the meeting was held in London this year the EC was organised in Berne, hosted by IFRTD’s long-term donor SDC, from December 5 to 7, 2007. The Executive Committee meeting was divided into a governance day, a strategy workshop and a networking and organisational learning day organised in collaboration with Transnet, the network of Swiss transport practitioners.
As usual a wide number of participants from various bodies attended the meeting. Besides the entire Secretariat, two NFG representatives per region (eight in total) had been elected through the regional consultative process to report and account for activities in the past year as well as agree on the work plan for 2008. The EC had representatives from Colombia, Mexico, Madagascar, Niger, Tanzania, Uganda, Pakistan and Indonesia as well as Burkina Faso. The GATNET representative this year was Priyanthi Fernando ensuring participation from IFRTDs Community of Practice. Paul Starkey and Camilla Lema represented IFRTD's co-opted membership while Danang Paikesit served as IFRTD’s chairman. And Practical Action and ILO were there in their capacity as institutional members.
From the bi-lateral side DFID, Sida, and SDC shared their valuable experiences and expertise. This broad based participatory approach helped to ensure that a wide variety of views informed the Executive Committee’s decisions which will guide IFRTD’s work for the next year as well providing an essential mechanism for upward and downwards accountability.
The first day of the Executive Committee Meeting was set aside for governance. Each of the four regions as well as the Secretariat reported on activities and programmes of 2007 as well as shared and agreed on work plans for 2008. The second day was set aside for strategy and in particular sharing the results of the capacity assessment, looking at the required capacities needed to implement the strategy and in particular to prepare IFRTD for independence. The EC decided to have a small board to provide oversight on operational, legal and financial matters, consisting of maximum 9 people predominantly elected from the regions while the current EC would provide strategic direction for the network. A small task force, consisting of 4 regional representatives, the Chair and IFRTD’s Executive Secretary will work out the details in the first quarter of 2008. For more details please see the minutes available below. The last day was set aside for organisational learning, networking and sharing information with Skat organising a TRANSNET meeting. For more information click here.To download a PDF of the ECM agenda and minutes please click here. If you are interested in obtaining a CD ROM of the full presentations given during the meeting then please contact ifrtd@ifrtd.org.
