At an extraordinary General Assembly on 12 February, IFLA’s Members expressed their strong support for changes implementing our Federation’s Governance Review. IFLA will now move rapidly to launch the nominations and elections process for 2021.

At the heart of IFLA’s Governance Review has been the desire to ensure that we have the structures and processes necessary to match the ambition and values our IFLA’s Strategy.

Alongside the need to become more agile and effective, the core objective has therefore been to make it easier to understand, and to engage in our work.

With the success of our Strategy depending on being able to draw on all of the strengths of our field, in the 18 months since the launch of the process, we have repeatedly consulted our Members and volunteers to identify your priorities and views.

A key milestone in the process was therefore passed at IFLA’s extraordinary General Assembly on 12 February, with a very strong majority – over 95% – of IFLA Members votes in favour of the necessary revisions to IFLA’s Statutes to bring the new structures into place.

Highlights of the reforms include a smaller and more strategic Governing Board with a higher share of directly elected members, new structures to strengthen the voice of IFLA’s regions, and new possibilities to explore key professional issues.

Learn more about the proposals on IFLA’s Governance Review pages

The next step is to launch the process of electing and appointing the volunteers who will breathe life into IFLA’s new structures, not least a new President-elect, Treasurer and Governing Board.

We will issue a call for nominations on 1 March, and further communication about the possibilities open to you in the coming weeks.  Current committees will be able to serve out their terms, and those eligible to do so will be able to stand again.  

IFLA President Christine Mackenzie said: ‘It is wonderful to see such a strong vote of support for these changes, following a process where we have benefitted so much from our Members’ insights and ideas. I am confident that IFLA will now have the structures it needs to allow us to fulfil our goals, and, in line with the theme of my Presidency, to work together effectively and successfully’.

IFLA Secretary General Gerald Leitner said: ‘As Secretary General of IFLA, I see this as a major step forwards in IFLA’s transformation to becoming a more inclusive, effective, and transparent organisation. Our Members will see the impacts almost immediately with the call for nominations on 1 March.

I want to thank all those who have brought us to this stage – our President, our Governing Board, our Parliamentarian, IFLA Headquarters staff, and of course our Members and volunteers. We are IFLA’.

Watch the extraordinary General Assembly again on our YouTube channel.

Kind regards,

Gerald Leitner
Secretary General
The Hague, Netherlands
12 February 2021