Dear IAPHL Members,
I hope this letter finds you well. There is a lot to share in this month.
The Advisory Group has met and has decided on most of the recommendations that were made by the smaller committee working on the new three year strategy. Thanks to the members who completed our survey, as those results were part of the approval discussions. There are still some details to work on, including the final Terms of Reference for the new Governing Council. The following are the key decisions. We will also be posting the full report soon to the listserv for everyone to read.
At this time, we will not be changing the name of IAPHL. The secretariat will continue to explore the possibility to do so with stakeholders. IAPHL, depending on funding, will continue to offer ambassadorships to attend conferences. The secretariat will support country chapters to develop local advocacy strategies, including providing training to chapters if funding is available. IAPHL, depending on funding, will continue the small grant program to our country chapters. The current Advisory Group will be replaced by the creation of a Governing Council made up of 15 members, including:
| Permanent members | |
| 4 | Donors |
| 2 | Chapter Council Representatives (elected by the chapter council) |
| Secretariat (Non-voting rights) | |
| Rotating members
The organization will complete an application, and their representative will serve a period of two years, and can reapply after the two years. |
|
| 2 | At Large Members (these two individuals will go through a special application process that will be posted soon to the listserv) |
| 2 | Professional associations and academic organizations |
| 2 | Multilateral and technical agencies |
| 3 | Supporting agencies (private sector, government, other associations) |
| 15 | Total number of members with voting rights |
The final key decision is that we will be recruiting for a half-time executive director and a half-time community manager to come from and be based in Africa. We will be advertising for the executive director position in the coming weeks.
We have also selected the scholarship finalists to serve as our ambassadors to the PtD Indaba to be held in Zambia in October. It was a hard decision, as it was to pick the semi-finalists. Based on their submissions and discussions occurring on the IAPHL listserv, we picked 11 representatives. Their submissions, along with the other semi-finalists, really energized our listserv to have the type of discussions that our community of practice should be having all the time. Congratulations to our finalists. Each ambassador will be expected to report on the listserv on their key learnings from the conference. The finalists are the following:
- Kidus Tesfaye Getahun, Ethiopia
- Zerihun Zekariyas, Ethiopia
- Barbara Merlain Bonny, Haiti
- Umesh Gupta, Nepal
- Haruna Muhammad Sabo, Nigeria
- Ukamaka Okafor, Nigeria
- Altaf Bijarani, Pakistan
- Ivan Kelly Zinga, Congo
- Amara Bangali Sesay, Sierra Leone
- Olga M. Muza, Zimbabwe
- Bright Mapiki, Zambia
I am looking forward to attending the PtD Indaba with our ambassadors in Zambia in October. As you may know, we have been very involved as part of the Steering and Technical Committees. I hope to meet with all of our members that will be in attendance. There is also a good chance that Rachel Simon, Community Manager, and I will be able to join a Zambia IAPHL Chapter meeting while we are there. After our time in Zambia we will be going to Zimbabwe to conduct our first Chapter Advocacy Training. We expect to be co-facilitating this training with an advocacy expert from the area.
So I hope you have found this month’s executive letter to be very informative.
Please stay safe. All the best.
Walter Proper, IAPHL Executive Director