IACD’s Annual Work Plan Review

Feb 21, 2018 0 Comment Post By:IACD Membership

 

 IACD REPORT ON 2017/18 WORK PLAN ACTIVITIES FOR MEMBERS.

I am delighted to present our report to members on the work undertaken by IACD on your behalf from April 2017 until March 2018 (the Scottish financial year). This was the second year of the current four year 2016-2020 Strategic Plan.  The bulk of this work was carried forward by our volunteer Board members and our small secretariat of one part time administrator and an adviser, Past President Charlie McConnell, who prepared this report. I am hugely appreciative to my Board colleagues and to all members who have been able to engage in one way or another in the association’s work during the work plan year. Whether to attended a conference, read or wrote for the magazine, engaged with the website, Facebook site and GCDEX or responded to policy consultations, we hope you found it helpful and worth your membership fee.

As I reiterated at our February Board meeting, where we approved this report and also discussed the projected end of financial year accounts, IACD is run on a tight ship. We are a small organisation that is able to punch above its weight because of the membership fee that you pay, the income from our events and the core grant we receive from the Scottish Government.

All of IACD’s work is undertaken in collaboration with others, whether this be national CD networks or agencies. IACD’ strength lies in this collaborative approach and network building. And I would again want to express my thanks to those many partners across the world.

Holding our 2017 international conference earlier (in Auckland in February 2017) meant that our AGM, usually held in June/July/August of any year was not linked with the conference. In 2017 we held an on-line AGM using the Zoom platform, whereby members from around the world could join a live video AGM together with Board members. Three new Board appointments were made representing South Asia, Europe and Sub Saharan Africa and we also saw an expansion of our Country Correspondent appointments during the 2017/18 year (for Chile, Kenya, Pakistan, Australia and Uganda). We combined some of our sub-committees at the AGM. In December 2017 our Board member/treasurer Rob Gregory left the Board due to a job move. Scottish Board member, Clare Macgillivray took over as treasurer.  I would want to express enormous thanks to Rob for his work for the association as our treasurer these past three years.

Paul Lachapelle

President

 

 TARGETS AGREED FOR THE 2017/18 YEAR.

 

The following report highlights the work undertaken by the association set against annual work plan targets, which are intended to take forward our 2016-20 Strategic Plan priorities:

 

  1. To advocate for the discipline and the methods of community development.

 

  1. To support and engage with members and the field, by promoting and providing quality international practice exchanges, conferences, continuing professional development support, website resources, publications, research and policy analysis and commentary.

 

  1. To promote regional and country fora and support frameworks for community development practitioners (fieldworkers, managers, academics and students) around the world.

 

  1. To ensure the short, medium and longer term sustainability of

 

The work programme for the 2017/18 year aimed to take forward all of these, building upon the first year’s activities reported to IACD members last year. We extended and consolidated this through a wide range of events, continuing professional development support, resource development and member recruitment.

The 2017 New Year took off with our annual conference, a few weeks prior to this report period, in Auckland, New Zealand. This conference continued the association’s policy into practice commitment to preparing the community development field for engagement with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The report from the 2017 Auckland conference was published in May 2017.

  1. To organise a World Community Development Conference in 2018. 

2018 is IACD’s 65th birthday year and we have used this to celebrate the importance of community development around the world as well as the legacy of the association. The conference is taking place in Maynooth, Ireland in June 2018, but the bulk of the planning, administration and marketing for the conference has taken place in this work plan year. The IACD/CWI/Maynooth University conference planning committee is being chaired by Irish Board member and Vice President, Anastasia Crickley. As of this month, we have over 200 abstracts for a combination of oral presentations, workshops and poster presentations and also art related contributions from all over the world including Australia, China, Japan, various African and South American countries, USA and Europe. We expect approximately 350 participants.

  1. To expand the Global Community Development Exchange. 

The Global Community Development Exchange (GCDEX) is an initiative of IACD and is currently administered by the Aotearoa Community Development Association (ACDA). The aim of the GCDEX is to create a virtual place where community development teachers practitioners and learners from across the globe can share teaching and learning approaches tools and resources. The GCDEX repository, has 3 volumes, Resources (the main volume), Courses and Opportunities.  Materials are lodged into a volume under one or several of up to 80 categories and then tagged for ease of grouping into the referencing. New categories or chapters are added as areas of special interest develop. In 2017 it was decided to recognise the extraordinary contribution Scotland’s community development teachers practitioners and agencies have made to the field with a new chapter called “Scotland the brave.” This chapter has been under development for several months. A further new chapter on indigenous approaches to community development is also under construction.

  1. To develop a new IACD website.

This year we were able to launch the association’s new website www.iacdglobal.org on 1st April 2017. The website has been completely re-designed with many new pages. The majority of the 20,000 visitors are new who did not visit the previous website. We have received very good feedback on the new design and navigability. Alongside the new website, we have greatly expanded the daily posts placed on IACD’s Facebook site. Total posts from 1st April 2017 – 31st Jan 2018 = 988. Total followers as of 7th Feb 2018 = 4423. Total likes as of 7th Feb 2018 = 4445

  1. To publish three issues of the IACD magazine Practice Insights.

In 2016/17 we exceeded our agreed target of three issues of the magazine, by publishing an additional Special 65th Birthday issue. Practice Insights magazine is intended for the busy practitioner and receives very positive feedback. We had two geographic issues – For East Asia and for the Americas. The magazine is sent to around 3000 subscribers each year.

  1. To organise a Practice Exchange continuing professional development programme. 

Following the success of our India/Nepal programme in 2016/17, we joined with partners in Chile and Peru to co-organise a programme, in South America.  This programme has enabled IACD to raise its profile on the continent, where historically our membership has been very low.  Our IACD South American Board member led on this and acted as an interpreter.

  1. To continue to reinforce the work towards creating international occupational guidelines for the community development field. 

This project has enabled IACD to share and build upon the work that has been developed in several countries over the past eighteen years and our work in producing a global definition of community development in 2016. We have gathered together examples of national CD standards from around the world and ran two consultation workshops. From this we published draft CD international standards guidelines in the autumn 2017, as a result of a partnership with the CLD Standards Council. The draft document is currently out for member consultation (ending March 31st). Following any required redrafting we shall launch the international guidelines at the WCDC.

  1. To design and deliver an IACD international CPD blended learning programme for community development practitioners around the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

As a result of our 2016/17 roadshow of events highlighting the important opportunities the SDGs present for CD practice our intention was to design a CPD blended learning programme that could be delivered through trainer partners in different countries. We ran a consultation workshop with practitioners and trainers, and undertook scoping and preparatory work, including identifying material which would be suitable to a global audience. We also looked across a range of digital platforms. We discussed this initiative with the CLD Standards Council to explore whether they would be interested in endorsing the course in principle, which they indicated they could. However they also advised that we could ourselves be the accrediting body. We have since been thinking that rather than just focusing upon the SDGs, we should co-design with educational and practice partners a post graduate blended learning CD programme aimed at more senior practitioners/managers. We are also keen to use this as a pilot for IACD accreditation. Our intention now is to aim to secure a larger grant for this work from a US foundation and to explore the income earning potential of international accreditation.

  1. To support at least three events in IACD’s global regions. 

 

In 2017/18 we co-partnered with national CD associations on two regional conferences, one in Nigeria and one in the Philippines. These were well attended and helped boost interest in IACD in both regions. This work was led by our respective regional directors. In addition our East Asia director led a series of seminars about community development work to several Chinese universities.

  1. To continue to enhance UN awareness of, support for, and influence of community development and practitioner and project engagement with relevant UN issues.

As an accredited organisation to the UN, the association is required to submit a brief annual report on our work. This focusses upon the amount of work we have been doing to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals Agenda 2030. We are asked to illuminate this with examples of our work and for 2017 we highlighted the Auckland conference – Sustainably Yours; Practice Insights magazine which presented case studies and commentary from around the world on CD and the SDGs; and the establishment of the Global Community Development Exchange, which uses the SDGs themes as core to its indexing.

IACD has four active representatives who attend events and consultation meetings at the UN in New York or Geneva. These are Anastasia Crickley who is the current chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), Tony Kimbowa who also works for UN Women, Randy Adams Past Vice President and Esther Farmer, New York based member. In her role as CERD chair, Anastasia attended many UN related events and spoke at the general assembly.

During the year our IACD reps also attended the following meetings at the UN:

  1. Africa-Decade for People of Africa Descent;
  2. Intergenerational Dialogues on SDGs
  3. Education for Global Citizenship Conference
  4. Rethinking Social Development in light of SDGs
  5. CSW 2017 – Malawi and UN Women;
  6. 20th UN Youth Assembly August 2017 chairing a panel with a focus on the role of Youth as ChangeMakers in their communities.

In January 2018 we appointed two youth members to join our team of volunteer representatives able to attend UN NGO consultation meetings in New York and/or Geneva – Alyssa Faulkner and Michael McTernan.

  1. To continue to run a lean and mean HQ office in Scotland.

Our move to be based alongside the Scottish Community Development Centre in Glasgow continues to prove hugely positive and has positioned us much more closely with the Centre and with the Scottish CD associations on both boards of which one of our Scottish Board members sits. From our very small office, we provide member service support and continue to profile Scotland as the location for CD’s international network.

  1. To continue to grow our membership numbers by 20% p.a.

We set this per annum target in our Strategic Plan and during the 2017/18 year our target was reached. This is the membership profile by region and includes individual and organisational members. As we reported last year, whilst our individual membership has increased our organisational membership (which is a higher costs) has reduced slightly. Our current membership currently stands at just under 400 members.                                       

  1. To secure a grant from a US based foundation.

During the year we made an unsuccessful application to the Carnegie Corporation in New York, to try to secure funding for IACD’s work. In the recent past IACD had successfully secured several years grant support from the Carnegie UK Trust. We have now established a US based fundraising committee, comprising several US IACD members with experience in fundraising. Members have gathered together information of likely foundations to approach, have met twice and will be meeting again in March to agree the package of proposals to take to US foundations.

International Association for Community Development

Baltic Chambers, Suite 305

50 Wellington Street

Glasgow

G2 6HJ

Scotland
UK

Enquiries: membership@iacdglobal.org

Telephone: +44 141 248 1924

 

IACD is registered in Scotland as a charity, registration number: SCO36090

 

 

 

 

 

February 2018

 

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