News and Cluster Activities
Marc Avanzo between MTV and the Ambassadors in Serbia
Submitted by Marc Avanzo
Marc sends a few words about his invitation to take part in the AIESEC Serbia "new leaders conference" .
the opening took place with:
- the Ambassador of Finland Ms Anna-Maiji Korpi,
- the Country Manager of Belgrade Office of the World Bank : Ms Carolyn Jungr
- The former Minister of Finance : Mr Mladan Dinkic
- The Ambassador of SAD : Mr Michael Polt
In the pannels there were amongst others:
- Luciana Pavan : Digital Media Director - MTV Networks Europe
- Ivan Tasovac : Director of Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra
- Zaklina Kusic : General Manager of Publicis Group SCG
- Goran Jesic, Mayor of Indjija
- Ana Sofrenovic, a famous serbian actress and singer
- Goran Pitic: president of Managing board of Societé Générale Yugoslav bank, president, faculty of economics, Finance and administration Serbia.
You can find some information on their site : www.newleaders.org.yu there were from around 150 to 200 delegates attending.
- Marc Avanzo's workshop
My workshop was on "a new paradigm of leadership to create common intelligence". We received great feedback from the participants.
The day started with 4 pannel discussions in a row, each of them gathering 4 pannelists.and taking place for about 30 minutes in front of all the delegates.
I was in the very first one with the MTV director for new media.in the following pannels, the directors of Société Générale and Publicis in Serbia, as well as a former Minister took part.
- Article on Arthur Dahl's presentations in the Finnish Press
Think High, Act Low
Submitted by Mika Korhonen
A seminar titled "Application of Moral and Ethical Principles in Business" was held in Jyväskylä University Campus, in Finland at the beginning of January.
Speaker, Arthur Dahl, took the audience deep into the root causes of the problems of the society today and enlighted us with the steps to be taken to reach a sustainable world.
"Think high, act low" was the theme of the evening.
Despite the holiday season a good audience was attracted to the evening, thanks to a combination of good publicity through AIESEC, through local newspaper advertisements and good old word of mouth.
- Arthur assures that the summer t-shirt photo taken in January in Finland, is not further proof of major global warming, rather the pleasure of a tropical botanical garden in Helsinki.
The evening was continued over a dinner in a local restaurant where all of the seminar participants were invited to continue discussions on these important topics.
As a follow-up, AIESEC told that they will have a major event soon in Jyväskylä and the local chairman Ari Hautala invited us there to network with the participants.
During his stay in Finland Arthur helped to draw the goals and targets for EBBF Finland and gave several interviews to newspapers, including the Finnish News Agency STT.
He then continued his trip to Tampere to meet with researchers, scientists, artists and alike in events organized by EBBF member Sylvia Karlsson.
Alessandra Bonezzi presents at the 7th International Sudan Studies Conference – University of Bergen, Norway
Submitted by Alessandra Bonezzi
- Alessandra Bonezzi
Gender Balance connected to Education
The aim of her presentation was to encourage the need to reach a complete equality of opportunities between women and menin order to reach a lasting peace, to increase the world's stability and for the progress of humankind.
All of this achieved through a strong emphasis on both formal and informal education that releases the full potential of women.
Below a few excerpts from ther talk.
Sudan: Endangering peace by ignoring women
For Sudan, and for the world at large, this decade is crucial for the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in Nairobi on 9 January 2005. Sustainable results depend on reducing gender inequality; the Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved without the full participation of women.
Though women have always played roles of leadership in their communities during and after conflict both within the home and in public settings, and made vital contributions to peace-building and reconciliation yet, they are still left out of peace negotiations, their roles being undervalued or ignored. Nevertheless, this is not an isolated drama of sudanese women.
There are several examples we could quote to show that anytime in history, anywhere in the world, women have always had a role in the destiny of their countries but their experiences and successes have been strategically ignored.
Voicing women in peace dialogue
Most of the problems that we face in human societies are caused by incorrect communication and interpretation of signals; family divorces, waste of time at work, difficult relationships with people, are the tangible effects of a missing or incorrect communication. Lack of communication is also the main cause of fear and intolerance among people. Communication leads to understanding, understanding leads to knowledge, knowledge is the key to freedom.
Dialogue has a tremendous impact in conflict solving but, unless founded on sincere peaceful basis and genuinely aimed to cross the borders of intolerance, suspicion and fear, environments that encourage change or climates of mutual trust and co-operation, will not be created. Dialogue reinforce the value of working together for the common good.
The global dialogue on the role of men and women must promote recognition of the intrinsic complementarity of the two sexes. Women are naturally endowed with peculiar communication skills but women’s words are not given enough consideration, too often judged as mere chatters. If the new paradigm to be built concerns the transformation from uniminded to pluriminded environments, where everyone has the right, the responsability and the resources to be active part of the process, each individual should be given the chance to be taught accordingly and personal development programs seem to represent a suitable solution to this need.
Increasing women’s inter-personal communication and personal skills, such as self awareness, self control and motivation, will both enhance their ability to step up and speak and empower them to teach other women to do so. Of course, this is not a ready made solution but a long-term process of change however, through this dynamics one day the behaviours of peace-building and self-reliance will become part of everyday life in Sudan.
Once women’s personal circumstances improved and their values integrated in the common sense of people, that hoped more “feminine” society will emerge giving birth to a new paradigm of society.
Unveiling women through equal education
The time has come for the institutions, largely composed by men, to use their influence to support and promote a systematic integration of women as a result of the firm consciousness that women contribution is not an optional to the establishment of a more peaceful, balanced and fair society. To increase the status of women in Sudan, and elsewhere in the world at all stages, education has to become the means to “decolonize the mind” and to release the individual’s imaginary, freed of comparisons from the past, that focuses on the creation of a new kind of society willing to reject the persistence of historical expressions of selfishness and inequality.
Education can do much for gaining equality. Social justice would never emerge unless all women will be given equal education and opportunities and unless the rights of women will be recognized as human rights and not as mere acts of irrational recrimination.
Intercontinental Links
Submitted by Nora Tönnis, François Couillard and Valerie Davis
Two Canadian EBBF members presented at a Global HR conference organized by EBBF member Nora Toennis of Change International, An International HR consulting and training firm based in Andernach, Germany. The conference hosted individuals from North America, Europe and the Middle East.
- Participants at one of the workshops
Valerie Davis, facilitated a dialogue on the theme of A New Paradigm of Leadership for International HR. She set the context for the need for a new paradigm by highlighting current and looming social, economic and environmental challenges we face in the world and drew a connection to the role business must play to resolve these challenges. Introducing the participants to World Café, a large scale dialogue methodology, the group then explored the question: How can Human Resources support the development of the leaders we need to ensure a sustainable world?
François Couillard talked about Best Practices in Restructuring: North America vs. Europe. He also made a presentation at the Inter Consultancy Conference that preceded on November 11. The topic of his talk was Strategies That Work: From Insights to Execution, How to Engage Employees. In this strategy talk he outlined the importance to recognize that there is no ideal strategy development process. Sometimes strategies just emerge in an organic way while in some organizations strategies are the fruit of very systematic and deliberate thinking and consultation. He encouraged organizations to adapt the strategy development process to their specific needs and culture. He also shared insights as to who should be involved in strategy development:
“strategy development should involve staff members that have a vested interest in the outcome of the process and who can make meaningful contributions by sharing deep insights”.
What does it mean to be human?
Submitted by Manouchehr Yazhari
It was with some excitement that the national executive of the UK branch of the EBBF gathered at the Swiss Cottage library in London, on a relatively mild January evening to host their first event of 2007. Approximately 30 audience members arrived to hear the distinguished guest speakers present ideas regarding the chosen topic, and take part in the ensuing discussion.
There was an initial welcome and introduction to the aims and vision of the EBBF, and some brief description of the Seven Core Values at the heart of the EBBF mission by the evening’s chairperson.
Thereafter, Mr Masoud Afnan, a specialist in infertility at Birmingham Women’s hospital commenced his presentation. Masoud explained that continuing rapid technological advancement in the biomedical and genetics fields mean that we constantly need to re evaluate our views on humanity and that which constitutes a human being. His specific examples touched on regenerative technology (for example the cloning of Dolly the sheep) and advances in transplant science.
Masoud’s comments set the scene for Dr Faraneh Vargha-Khadem, Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at the Institute of Child Health to elaborate further. Faraneh discussed thoughts on evolutionary biology, which have progressed somewhat with the recent finding of human remains that are approximately 7 million years old.
She talked about the properties of consciousness, and how humans are distinct to animals with regard to their ability to possess beliefs, to gesture, and be able to mentally ‘time travel’ ie project a vision of themselves and their situation in the future and work towards this. Faraneh also discussed the development of language and tied it in to further recently described science on the genetics of speech development. Her talk was illustrated throughout with quotations from both eminent scientists and the Bahai Writings, and concluded with a spiritual perspective.
There was then, active and stimulating discussion which explored further the genetic and scientific elements of the presentation, and then moved onto the philosophical and spiritual dimension. Masoud and Faraneh answered questions and facilitated the audience with warmth, humour and sensitivity; their considerable depth of knowledge and expertise were evident. Indeed, the discussion could have gone on for much longer but had to be drawn to a close.
This was a successful and most enjoyable EBBF UK event, the first for 2007; our gratitude to both Faraneh and Masoud for their excellent presentations and the UK board of the EBBF for their preparation in the time prior to the event.
One World Trust produces the 2006 Global Accountability Report
We are glad to announce The 2006 Global Accountability Report created by one of our partner organisations: the One World Trust.
It presents the results of the 2006 Global Accountability Index which assesses 30 of the world's most powerful organisations from across the inter-governmental, non-governmental and corporate sectors according to four widely-accepted principles of accountability: transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response.
The Index is the first initiative to undertake a cross-sector measurement and comparison of the accountability of transnational actors. In doing so, it provides a common framework of reference for assessing international institutions and extends basic principles of democracy to the global level. The assessments offer a means for organisations to take concrete action to increase their accountability and the effectiveness of global governance processes. The results show that there is much work to be done across the three sectors, but the progress of specific organisations in some areas prove that reform is achievable.
Copies of the full report can be downloaded from the Trust's website , along with more information about the Index
In 2007 the Trust will assess another 30 organisations, and in 2008 revisit the set assessed in 2006. They intend to continue to engage with the assessed organisations towards reform, and are actively seeking partners who can use our framework to undertake accountability assessments of these organisations at the field level.
For more information about this or our Accountability Programme, please contact Monica Blagescu, Accountability Programme Manager at mblagescu@oneworldtrust.org or +44 (0) 20 7766 3465.
