ASSOCIATIONS ROUND TABLES 2018

organized by the Union of International Associations

Cyril Ritchie

President of CoNGO - the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (2011-2018)

First Vice President of CoNGO (2018-2021)

President of the Council of Europe Expert Council on NGO Law (since 2008)

Senior Policy Advisor of WFC - World Future Council (since 2012)

Chair of ELCI - Environment Liaison Centre International (since 2000)

President of UIA - Union of International Associations (since 2017)

Titular of the World Order of the Smile (since 1979)

President of FIIG - Federation of Semi-Official and Private International Institutions established in Geneva (since 1978)

President of ICSFD - International Civil Society Forum for Democracy (2006)

Chair of WOCSOC - World Conference on Civil Society (1999)

Executive Director of ICVA - International Council of Voluntary Agencies (1964-1978 and 1990-1991)

David Pritchett

David has 20 years of experience in Corporate Responsibility (CR) / Sustainability management, reporting, performance, and strategy development. He has worked extensively with organisations to assess and design CR-related strategy and governance, materiality assessment processes, create stakeholder engagement strategies and implementation plans, facilitate stakeholder engagement activities, and develop assurance, management and reporting systems.

As companies invest increasing resources into non-financial issues and topics, David supports his clients to effectively allocate these resources, to optimise strategic management decisionmaking and to ensure effective performance management through to tangible impact measurement.

David leads the technical content on Materiality, Stakeholder Engagement and Impact for the revision of the AA1000 Series of Standards. He ensures that the wealth of experience gathered over the last two decades in terms of advisory services and research in these areas at AccountAbility is accurately reflected in the updated content of the Standards.

Prior to joining AccountAbility, David spent 14 years with the Sustainability & Climate Change, Governance, Risk and Compliance team at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Deryck Browne

Deryck Browne is the Chief Executive of the African Health Policy Network, a national association of small community based health organisations and individuals working on issues concerning migrant health, well-being and welfare in the UK.

Before working in the migrant health field he was working in forensic psychology where he released several publications.

Issues of equality and diversity have always been at the centre of his work and he was recently invited by the UK Upper Parliamentary Chamber (The House of Lords) to assist with one of their special Committees working on migrant mental health issues.

He lives in London with his wife and three children. When he is not working he plays guitar in a rock and roll band.

Dr Paulína Koršňáková

IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement)

Dr Paulína Koršňáková is a Senior Research and Liaison Adviser to IEA, a non-profit international scientific society that conducts pedagogical research worldwide.

She is responsible for supporting and developing the existing membership and institutional partnerships in accordance with IEA’s mission.

Philippe Garnier

Philippe Garnier (1963) is an architect by profession, graduated from the National School of Architecture of Grenoble (ENSAG). He is a researcher, lecturer and consultant for CRAterre (the International Center for Earth Construction) at the AE&CC research unit (ENSAG) where he is co-chairing the Habitat research programme.

He dedicated most of his career since 1990 to experimental research, work and project development abroad in the field of “development” with CRAterre where the local building cultures concept was developed. This approach considers the importance of cultures in the production and management of built environment and how culture is an asset where future, sustainability, vulnerabilities and resilience are considered. He is in charge of several partnership development in relation with countries of operation or institutional network.

He teaches at the “earthen architecture, sustainable development and building cultures” Post-Master (DSA - Architecture de terre) as well as at Master level at the National School of Architecture but he also contributes to the ICUP Master Mundus Urbano (Erasmus+) “International Cooperation in Urban Planning” at Town Planning Institute of Grenoble (UGA-IUG).

He has developed specific expertise on sustainable housing and disaster risk reduction through projects and collaborations with various countries: Morocco, Indonesia, Iran, Nepal, Peru, Haiti, South Africa, Nigeria, etc. and conducted several consultancy work and expertise for UNESCO, UN-Habitat, EU, GCI, Caritas, ANR, AFD and also several French ministries.

He is a member of the French Partnership for City and Territories (PFVT) and of several other platforms and committees (« Housing and Slum Upgrading Branch” expert committee, Sherpa tool/GSHN, AFPCN, Risk@Univ. Grenoble Alpes, VOR, etc.).

He also publish/co-publish articles and books related to his work.

He is presently a member of the AFPCN Scientific council and of the UGA CDP Risk scientific project.

Isabel Amaral

Isabel Amaral is the founder and President of the Portuguese National Association of Protocol Studies (APOREP).

Holding a master’s degree in international Relations (Lisbon University), she gives Master classes at the Diplomatic Institute and some universities in Portugal, Spain and Brazil.

As an expert on corporate image, cross cultural communication and protocol she has given lectures in four continents and developed executive trainings in Portugal, Angola, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Cape Verde, Namibia, Netherlands, Spain, People’s Republic of China and United Kingdom.

She’s the author of two books in Portuguese: “Imagem e Sucesso”, a book on image and corporate protocol and “Imagem e internacionalização”, a book about cross cultural communication for a global market and she has contributed to other books and publications.

As President of UIA and also, until this year, President of CoNGO, the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations, Cyril is particularly well placed to tell us about the pros and cons, the benefits and the obligations, of being accredited in the UN system.

How do organisations become — and remain — sustainable? And why should they go through the trouble? Organisations have become increasingly focused on sustainability: what it is, why it matters and how to manage and measure it. Some have become mature practitioners of sustainability assessment, governance and performance, whilst others are now fast developing their approach or setting out on this journey. At the same time, a diverse range of stakeholders — from nonprofits to investors, consumers and others — have become more engaged with the spirit and mechanics of shared value creation. They increasingly challenge organisations to set clear sustainability objectives; to measure and monitor their progress; and to show impactful performance in areas of material importance. Within this expanding and energized landscape, and through in-depth engagement with our own stakeholders, we have revised the AccountAbility Principles to reflect lessons learned over the past decade and best practices for the 21st century. Designed to be of use to organisations regardless of size or sector, from its inception the AA1000AP has been a practical set of internationally accepted and auditable guiding principles with which organisations can effectively shape their sustainability strategy and successfully manage their sustainability performance.

The purpose of the AccountAbility Principles is to provide organisations with a practical set of internationally accepted guiding principles with which they can assess, manage, improve and communicate their accountability and sustainability performance. The four main principles are:

1. People should have a say in the decisions that impact them.
2. Decision makers should identify and be clear about the sustainability topics that matter.
3. Organisations should act transparently on material sustainability topics and their related impacts.
4. Organisations should monitor, measure and be accountable for how their actions affect their broader ecosystems.

This presentation will focus on inclusion. In order for our Associations or Networks to be fully effective they have to be fully inclusive. Some of us may think this is relatively straightforward as our membership may be self-defining. But it is usually more opaque than this. Deryck's story will cover his organisation's journey in building a small but diverse membership. He will discuss some of the strategies used to actively involve newer migrant communities, and look at what worked, and what didn't, in respect of appealing to a broader network of members and stakeholders.

The catering at your event is crucial because it is so closely linked to the image of your event.

Your participants may forget the layout of the room, the colour of the carpet, and even the technical bugs, but if the catering is bad they will go home feeling deceived. This impacts the image of the venue and, more importantly, the image of your organization.

Working with an in-house catering department gives you the opportunity to prepare your event and have everything ready well in advance. Are there vegetarians or vegans? What about a gluten-free option? How many courses are enough? A local menu or something more specific? The catering department needs to be able to answer all your questions and to work with you step by step. And then, what next? What about food waste? What are the rules regarding the garbage generated by the event?

Stéphane will share his experience and his challenges as coordinator of the Lyon Convention Centre catering department.

CRAterre is an NGO and research lab that mainly worked abroad in the field of sustainable built environment. Since its establishment the organization has been promoting partnership and capacity building as a key component of its local building cultures approach, co-developing projects with local partners to improve human settlements and to safeguard and promote culture heritage through the valorization of the various resources of local territories. Building partnerships with different stakeholders is a key aspect of our success, as will be illustrated by some case studies. We will conclude with the main lessons learnt at CRAterre.

Philippe will talk from his own experience in identifying partners in his 30 years of field work in various countries (e.g. South Africa, Nepal, Haïti).

To educate the world, we must focus on not only the number of children in school but also the quality of the education that they receive. Recognizing this distinction, UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 is to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. As a leader in international large-scale assessments of education, the IEA is well-placed to provide data for monitoring progress towards achieving this goal. However, this has not been an easy task and our experiences have taught us lessons that are worth sharing, because they are transferable to other areas and contexts.

Measuring educational progress at a global level is challenging. Proper data collection is expensive and must follow strict guidelines to ensure comparability. Even with careful and rigorous analysis, there is a risk of focusing on too few indicators of educational progress and leaving out other important factors that influence how a child learns. Similarly, communicating the results of such studies requires a fine balance between reporting progress but not turning the exercise into an international competition of which country is better than another.

Our world has been transformed into a global village and international associations must often work with a multicultural team or organize meetings all over the world.

Globalization does not mean that there is a homogenization of cultures. Culture is a complex system of values, beliefs, attitudes and customs shared by a society. It affects our behaviour and the way we communicate. Until we all speak the same language, share the same history, the same heroes, the same symbols and the same religion, we will continue to be unique.

Faced with a different culture we tend to impose our own values believing them to be the best. But what may be acceptable in Lyon may be unacceptable in Delhi. When organising an international meeting it is advisable to adopt a common code to overcome three main barriers in cross-cultural communication: prejudice, language and religion.

Cross cultural competence is knowing how to bridge the gap in behaviour to operate effectively, adapting your approach just enough to relate effectively, but not so much that it feels inauthentic. We need to accept that it’s a continuous learning process and that it’s okay to make mistakes, as long as we apologize when they occur, creating a comfortable atmosphere so people feel it’s easy to speak up, and check in with each other when in doubt.