At a meeting of the Executive Committee (February 12-15, 2002) a new constitution was adopted. As our readers will recall, this constitution was discussed in detail at our previous Executive Committee meeting in Chihuahua, Mexico (May, 2001). Following that meeting a committee consisting of Nandini Rawal (India), Bill Brohier (Malaysia) and Colin Low (United Kingdom) were charged with incorporating suggestions that grew out of discussion at the Chihuahua Executive Committee meeting.
The purpose of this note is to alert you to the most important features of this new constitution.
As you will see, it moves ICEVI in the direction indicated by the Sao Paulo policy document and the new Strategic Plan. Both of these emphasize the centrality of strong regions to our future.
Secondly, the new constitution provides for ICEVI to become an association in which members have voting rights. Under our current legal status as a stifting (foundation) registered in the Netherlands, only members of the Executive Committee have voting rights.
The plan is to register the new association in the United Kingdom. This may take a little time and the formalities of registration will require the constitution to be laid out in somewhat different form.
The result of moving from a "stifting" to an "association" in this way means that we will find ourselves in a transitional situation during our forthcoming World Conference. The delegate structure outlined in the new constitution provides us with a voting procedure that the Executive Committee believes will serve us well and reflect our efforts to strengthen our regional structures. However, since most regions will not have the mechanisms in place to implement this new procedure by July 2002, the Executive Committee is proposing to deal with this transitional situation, for this Conference only, by utilizing our earlier voting structure which relies on national delegates elected from those present at the World Conference. This I believe will move us through this transitional phase using a voting procedure that is both known to our members and which will guarantee that the will of our members is respected during the Business Meeting on the final day of the World Conference.
Although the precise form of the constitution may change in the course of the registration process, we were anxious to share it with you now in fulfillment of the pledge given at the Sao Paulo Conference so that you might have a clear idea of what has been adopted by unanimous vote of your Executive Committee. We will publish the revised version in a future edition of the Educator once the registration process is complete, but members can be assured that the substance is unlikely to change significantly.
Colin Low
Member of ICEVI Executive Committee