A More Inclusive, Effective IFLA: First Draft of our Governance Proposals
Channel: IFLA
Date: 2020-06-19

Christine Mackenzie, IFLA President 2019-2021, presents the first draft of the Governance Review Proposal.
Transcript: Hello, I'm Christine Mackenzie, the president of IFLA, and I'm really excited to let you know that the draft proposal for a new governance structure for IFLA is now available. The whole Governing Board and staff have been working on this project since August last year. And I'm so happy that we are now at this point. Thanks to those of you, too, who have already contributed your ideas and suggestions. We heard many points of view and we hope that what we have come up with is a proposal that addresses the feedback we got. There are five areas that you told us are important. You want more transparency, efficiency and collaboration, stronger regional representation, financial and organisational sustainability, more opportunities to participate and better support for everyone who volunteers their time for IFLA to improve libraries around the world. So now we want to share with you how we think we can achieve this.
 
We've looked at the Governing Board and how it can evolve as IFLA evolves. We are reducing its size and its focus will be more on governance, finance and risk management. There will be a new high profile, high impact regional council to represent all regions of the world, and we're creating new possibilities to be able to add members to the board and committees to ensure regional diversity. We know that the best work of IFLA is done through our Professional Units. We're keeping the names same, but we're doing it differently. And there will be more ways of participating in IFLA. And we're standardising and simplifying things so that it's easy for you to figure out how to get involved. I hope you agree that this is a new, modern and more inclusive governance structure, and I'm really looking forward to getting your feedback and suggestions. Let's work together to make IFLA as good as it can be.