SCECSAL member Associations to adopt amended constitution in 2018

The SCECSAL member Associations will in April 2018, in Entebbe, Uganda at the SCECSAL Business meeting, discuss and adopt the amended constitution of the organization.

Following a decision, at the XXIInd SCECSAL Conference in 2016 in Swaziland, to establish a permanent SCECSAL Secretariat and the acrimonious situation that arose during the process to appoint the host of the XXIIIrd SCECSAL conference in 2018, the member Associations resolved to emend the constitution to bring it in line with the new developments.

Representatives of SCECSAL member Associations
at the XXIInd SCECSAL Conference held in Ezulwini,
Swaziland in 2016 [Photo: Justin Chisenga]

The Associations specifically resolved “to review and amend the SCECSAL constitution to include terms of reference for the proposed Permanent Secretariat and other appropriate provisions to strengthen SCECSAL operations and monitoring mechanisms, and simplify the biding process for hosting SCECSAL”.

Since June 2016, the Presidents and Chairpersons of the SCECSAL member Associations have held five rounds of consultations on the proposed text to amend the constitution mainly through email communication and one Skype session.

The final draft of the amended constitution, to be discussed in April 2018 in Uganda, include new articles and clauses on:

• Registering SCECSAL as a non-governmental organization in a SCECSAL member country;
• Mandate and key functions of the SCECSAL Permanent Secretariat;
• Establishing a SCECSAL Executive Board;
• Sanctioning member Associations not meeting their constitutional obligations;
• Formation of interest groups.

SCECSAL last amended its constitution in April 2000, in Namibia, when it replaced the document that was initially drafted in the 1970s.

Library and information professionals in the SCECSAL region can contribute to the SCECSAL constitution amendment process through their Associations from where they can also obtain copies of the draft document.

Several other documents to support the implementation of the amended constitution once it is adopted, are under development and they include SCECSAL bylaws, guidelines for selecting the host for the Permanent SCECSAL Secretariat and hosts for future SCECSAL conferences, and guidelines for the Author of the Year Award and the Best SCECSAL Conference Papers Award.