Goodbye from outgoing IFLA Africa President Carey Duncan
In the October edition of the IFLA Africa Newsletter outgoing President Carey Duncan included message, - we thought we’d highlight it here - we will miss you Carey!
Farewell from past president Carey Duncan
After the IFLA Africa regional council meeting held on 15th October 2021, I handed over the reins to the new president, Graham Young. This was a significant event in the life of IFLA Africa as it was the first time an IFLA ExCo has been properly elected according to our Constitution and Bylaws that were agreed upon in 2019 in Tunis. Before that, the presidency was allocated, in terms of the Abuja agreement, on a rotating basis amongst the member associations. Although things could have happened differently following the electoral process, it is appropriate that the presidency went to South Africa, having previously been in Kenya, Nigeria and Morocco. South Africa is one of the first, and certainly the most established associations in our IFLA Africa community. South African has also just hosted the very successful 7th IFLA Africa Symposium held entirely online.
In the week that has followed the Symposium, I have been in a bit of a fog, feeling almost a sense of bereavement! When you have been living, eating, breathing IFLA Africa for the past 4 years, and with particular intensity over the past months trying to complete projects and participating in the organisation of the Symposium, it all suddenly feels as if you have lost a part of yourself! I will certainly miss our monthly meetings with the friends I have made in both the World and Regional ExCos and the exchanges in between. But I might not miss the late nights, the deadlines, the "oh just one more thing to do before I go to bed…!" But there I stop before I scare the new team too much!
IFLA Africa has made some significant strides over the past four years thanks to our strong team at ExCo and the member associations' participation. We have a Constitution and Bylaws, we finalised and adopted the African Landscape Convention (ALC) and produced an IFLA Africa Education Policy and Guidelines + Accreditation Procedures manual. Building on the aims of the ALC, we went on to launch an online African Journal of Landscape Architecture (AJLA) and the African Landscape Network (ALN). We also have a monthly newsletter that has enabled us to keep in touch with our member associations, and to share our news with the other IFLA regions. I am very proud of these achievements and wish to thank everyone who worked so tirelessly on them. I'm afraid to mention names, as that inevitably means leaving someone out!
We welcomed LAAB in Botswana as a member of IFLA Africa, and a new individual member from Ethiopia. We also welcomed MILA (Malawi) back after some years of absence.
I would have liked to do more on our working groups which mirror the structure of IFLA World, and I hope with time they will develop into stronger and more active centres for projects in the region. I would also like to have been able to attain better two-way communication with the member associations and to have been assured that IFLA activities were well communicated to all members, and not just the delegates and presidents. In this vein, I make one last appeal to make sure that, as a delegate, you pass the message along and invite wider participation from your members. The diagram shows just how important the role of the delegate is of getting information to individuals. Individuals can, however, subscribe to this newsletter by clicking on the link at the bottom.
And so, with that, it is time to take a back seat an let the new team rev up and get going! Well done and good luck to Graham, Kharbal, Ikram, Goabamang, Franklin and Brenda! I know you'll do a great job!
Over and out!