SCECSAL General Council reaffirms its decision to establish a permanent secretariat for SCECSAL

The SCECSAL General Council last week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, voted overwhelmingly to implement its

Members of the SCECSAL General Council at the XXII SCECSAL
conference in Ezulwini, Swaziland in April 2016.

29 April 2016 decision to establish a permanent SCECSAL Secretariat.

In a secret ballot held on the Ballotbin.com platform, nine out of 11 SCECSAL member Associations took part and 88% voted to go ahead with the 2016 decision while 12% voted against.

The vote was called following weeks of delays and hesitations to discuss and approve the draft guidelines for selecting the host and the terms of reference for the proposed permanent Secretariat.

The members voted on the motion: Should SCECSAL go ahead and establish a Permanent Secretariat?

The members will now hold further consultations on the draft terms of reference for the permanent Secretariat, guidelines for selecting the permanent host, the memorandum of understanding to govern the arrangements for the Secretariat, and discuss the best way to implement the decision without losing the autonomy they currently enjoy, especially in organizing the biennial SCECSAL conferences on a rotational basis.

In April 2016, at the XXII SCECSAL conference in Ezulwini, Swaziland, the General Council adopted a resolution  to establish a permanent secretariat for SCECSAL and to amend the constitution to include a provision and terms of reference for the secretariat.

The Swaziland Library Association has been hosting the SCECSAL Secretariat on a temporary basis since April 2016.

The General Council is made up of Presidents/Chairpersons of SCECSAL member associations that currently include Botswana Library Association, Kenya Library Association, Lesotho Library Association, Library and Information Association of South Africa, Library and Information Association of Zambia, Malawi Library Association, Namibia Information Workers Associations, Swaziland Library Association, Tanzania Library Association, Uganda Library and Information Association and Zimbabwe Library Association.