Dear CIVICUS friends,
As Chair of the CIVICUS Board of Directors, I am delighted to share with you some results of our Board of Directors meeting held in Istanbul, Turkey at the end of March, 2014. I congratulate CIVICUS voting members for electing a truly diverse, international and inter-generational Board. This diversity will benefit us all at CIVICUS.
As the Board we adopted key priorities for our term in office, which include fundraising, strategic engagement and sustainable financial growth. We also adopted new ways of work focusing on a Board that provides thought leadership as we maintain our core responsibility of oversight and policy advice to the organisation.
The Board received a management report, and we are encouraged by the strategic approaches and positioning of CIVICUS by the Secretary-General, Danny Sriskandarajah, and the management team. The Board has given their full support for International Civil Society Week 2014, complete with CIVICUS World and Youth Assemblies. We are excited to host this event in Johannesburg, South Africa, with local and international CIVICUS partners. We therefore encourage our members, partners and friends to actively engage with CIVICUS through these exciting opportunities. CIVICUS is already exploring the next location for International Civil Society Week, planned for early 2016.
Whilst in Istanbul, we also held a public event, organised in partnership with TUSEV (Third Sector Foundation of Turkey) and chaired by our Treasurer, Uygar Özesmi. This event served as a pre-launch for the State of Civil Society Report which we are looking forward to reading and reflecting upon in May. A panel discussion took place, examining recent civil society and social movement experiences in Turkey, Brazil and Venezuela. (Include para on civil society voice in the post 2015 process, and some reference to the Global dash board)
CIVICUS is also promoting an approach designed to put citizens at the centre of the development agenda from 2016 and beyond. The Big Development DataShift is an exciting multi-stakeholder initiative to leverage the potential of new technologies and promote people-powered accountability. This project aims to build a community of people and resources prepared to harness the data revolution. It is both a movement and a tool to monitor and shape progress on the new global development agenda The DataShift is one of several ground breaking initiatives CIVICUS is currently developing that aims to enhance meaningful civil society participation in the post-2015 development agenda over the next few years.
As a Board, we also discussed using social media to amplify CIVICUS’ collective voice – so please follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
It was an honour spending quality time with my fellow Board Members, making bold decisions for fostering CIVICUS’ mission and global leadership role on civic engagement. I am inspired for the future and look forward to seeing CIVICUS members and partners in Johannesburg in November.
Best wishes,
Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda
Chair, CIVICUS Board of Directors