Notes+from+the+77th+Council+Meeting

=**IUCN Council Member Grace Mwaura Reports from the 77****th Council Meeting**= =**New Delhi, India**=


 * 15-16 November 2011**
 * Are we Protecting Nature?**

These past two days have been exciting and hectic as well. It’s the Plenary of the Council and the decision making process! The Opening Ceremony was graced by the Officials from the government of India, our host here in New Delhi.

The Director General, Julia Marton Lefevre's report to the Council is always something to look forward to in every Council. One thing I must compliment about Julia is the level of diplomacy she applies in her work, but also the amazing talent she has to create and build partnerships. She has a lot of energy that I find very useful in the Union.

Amazingly, this Council meeting, we managed to cover the discussions and decisions on major agendas of the Council, the Programme, Work Plan and Business Model, all in one day, including lengthy discussions on the Vision of IUCN, what we call “ A Union Fit for the Future”. Remember I mentioned this in my first report two days ago, and its my hope that we shall share this more before the Congress, on how IUCN should look like in the future.

Today we addressed a multitude of issues: the Congress Preparatory Committee decisions, Membership issues arising from the Constituency Committee, and finally had a high level seminar on the CBD COP 11, hosted by the government of India and the IUCN office in India. **I am happy to report, that I have received unofficial word from the Congress staff that there are 6 proposals for Congress events relating to young professionals that are being considered for approval.** We should get a report of this in the coming weeks.

The issue of Palestine as an IUCN Member is still a hot topic and, given the international debate going on about the membership of Palestine to UNESCO, IUCN is yet to make a decision on this issue. **We also approved membership of 50 new organizations, but unfortunately, none was a youth focused organization. This is still a challenge that we need to address and propose solutions to the Council and Congress.**

Several awards, medals, and honorary membership were announced in this Council meeting. For purposes of confidentiality in the Council, I will not mention the names here, but will instead focus on the discussion around the recognition of outstanding individuals who are involved in the work of IUCN. While honorary membership goes to long-standing individuals, **I feel that IUCN should consider the idea of also recognizing Youth Conservation Champions who will act as IUCN ambassadors among their peers and through their conservation work.** I have held this discussion with several Councilors, and its my hope that extensive discussion on this will happen on the final day of the Council tomorrow, and in the next Council meeting. In case of any news on this, I will keep you updated.

Finally, the government of India presented their preparations for the CBD COP 11 to the Council, and their intended partnerships with the IUCN. Its an educative as well as a strategic seminar that I sat through the whole afternoon, listening to the amazing work being done by the government of India, and the civil society network. Just in case you are involved in the CBD process, I urge you to consider this slogan that the government has come up with: //“Nature protects if she is protected”//


 * 13-14 November 2011**
 * Is the Union Fit for the Future?**
 * IUCN Council Member Grace Mwaura reports from the 77****th Council Meeting in New Delhi, India**

Its yet another time to join the IUCN Council; it gets more interesting, more appealing and more reflective as we near the Congress next year. As a new and appointed Councilor, my 4th Council meeting is much better than the first one; I have more understanding of the agenda at hand, I am more involved in the committees and working groups. This 77th Council here in New Delhi would not have been possible without the generous hosting and support we are getting from the IUCN President, Ashok Khosla, and the government of India. On top of that, I am just two months into my MPhil course in Environmental Policy at Oxford University, and its just amazing to see, through my studies, how much of a role IUCN has played in the shaping and sharpening of conservation governance at the international level.

Today was the 2nd day of the Council meeting, and as usual, we have come to an end of the Committee meetings. I participate in the PPC (Policy and Programmes Committee) as well as the Governance Committee. As well, I am now involved in a small Working Group on rethinking the future of IUCN, “A Union for the future." Its worth to mention that this is the think tank of the Union at the moment- its about setting strategies in line with our vision, but focusing on the short term, mid term and long term global issues and how IUCN fits into these. Later in the year, I should invite you to give us feedback, on what you would expect IUCN to look like in the future, given the rising new challenges, new solutions and changing forms of nature-society interactions around the world.

The PPC, as shared in my past reports, is to me the backbone of all that we see out there as the work of IUCN. It’s the core of the IUCN programmatic work. **On top of our agenda these two days has been the draft IUCN Programme 2013- 2016. I congratulate all of you who took part in the cross-Commission review process of the IUCN draft Programme. Our comments have been considered, and a new programme will be on the IUCN website soon for your further review.** The draft programme is yet to be approved by the Council (unless this happens tomorrow during the Council Plenary).

There has also been a lengthy discussion on the IUCN business model. This is what drives IUCN to achieve the above Programme; it’s the model that guides the Union towards raising resources to achieve the ideas expressed in the programme. I advice you to read this together with the draft programme to better understand how each of them complement each other. The ‘One Programme Statement Charter,’ which is also the work of the Governance Committee, is what unites all the work of the Union with the various constituents.

The PPC has successfully completed the review of all the IUCN policies and they are now in the process of developing a database where all these policies will be made accessible. Its going to be a very important tool for future conservation work, new programmes and partnerships; however I must note that, after the review, there is no policy relating to young people, and only a few resolutions that support the involvement of young professionals in IUCN. This calls for us to push further in this area and ensure that we have a policy that can move the Union towards addressing the issues of intergenerational partnership and equity. Among other major agendas that the PPC discusses relates to our involvement with the CBD, UNFCCC, World Heritage Convention, Oceans, IPBES, Private Sector, Rio +20, and finally the IUCN work plan and budgets! That’s too much, right? But we do manage. Sometimes I feel tired, but I am encouraged by the commitment of each of the Council members to ensure that every agenda is fully discussed and appropriate decisions made - its great!

As for the Governance Committee, you can easily tell what the meeting is all about, its where we make decisions on how to run the Union, the Statues, the Membership criteria, the rules of procedure, and the structure of the Union among many other governance issues relating to the Union, its Secretariat, the Membership and the Commissions. While I am more comfortable just contributing to the PPC, I joined this Committee because I was also interested in learning more about governance issues, and more so how an international organization like IUCN manages to run smoothly while still maintaining its visibility in the world. Maintaining visibility of an institution requires a lot of hours discussing ideas that turn into decisions and these affect our vision, and our visibility when we impact on the world. Among the most pressing agendas for the past three Council meetings has been our discussion around the membership of Local and Regional Governments which is also mentioned in Article 5 of the IUCN Statutes. While state governments do become IUCN Members (falling in Category A), considering their local and/regional governments as Members would have lots of implications on the IUCN membership given the diversity of these LRGAs, the rights they would be considered to attaint with their membership category and many other statutory mandates. In short I am saying, we are yet to make a decision on this issue!

The decisions on the Motions process during the Congress passed, and so we better get prepared to have all our Members at the Forums during the 2012 Congress to vote, otherwise no motions will pass without a 1/3 majority vote from both Categories A and B.

Among other issues that the Governance Committee will need more time to discuss are the statutory reforms, especially regarding the structure of the Council. **This is of interest to us; there is a proposal to add Council members to some of the IUCN Statutory regions, thus reducing the number of Appointed Councilors from 5 to 1. Another proposal concerning the Council Structure is to have an IUCN Councilor appointed to act as the Oceans Focal Point. This would mean, if the appointed Councilors would reduce to one, the young people would be left to compete with other needs of the Union for this appointment like Gender, Business, Indigenous people etc. On the other hand, if the proposal to have an appointed Councilor become an Oceans Focal Point is passed, then the youth could lose the chance of being in the Council in the years to come. However there is another alternative which gives us a chance for representation. Young people can be nominated as candidates from their regions and elected during the Congress, alongside more senior counterparts. This would be a great success only if we had a youth organization, which has a strong candidate who would be supported by all the other Member organisations in the statutory regions and thus elected at the Congress. However, the elected Councilors have mandates to represent their regions and thus the issues of youth may receive less attention. This calls for us to consider avenues to address this issue between now and the next Congress- no decisions have been made yet, but the proposals have been tabled.**

Thanks for reading my summary of some of the issues that would be of interest us as young professionals and I will keep you updated after the next two days!

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