Process to select host for the permanent SCECSAL Secretariat to start in May

SCECSAL General Council adopts guidelines for the selection process in Entebbe

Delegates at the opening session
of the XXIIrd SCECSAL conference in Entebbe

The process to select the SCECSAL member Association to host the permanent SCECSAL
Secretariat will be initiated in May following the adoption of the guidelines for the process on 24 April in Entebbe, Uganda by the SCECSAL General Council.

Since its establishments in 1974, the functions of the SCECSAL secretariat have been carried out on a rotation basis by the member Associations hosting the biennial SCECSAL conferences, an arrangement that has resulted in organization losing most of its records.

The SCECSAL General Assembly resolved, in April 2016 in Ezulwini, eSwatini, to establish a permanent SCECSAL Secretariat which is currently hosted on a temporary basis by the Swaziland Library and Information Association (SWALA).

The decision of the SCECSAL General Council in Entebbe, composed of the representatives of member Associations from eSwatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, to go ahead with the process of selecting a host for the SCECSAL secretariat is a bold move considering that SCECSAL member Associations have since 1998 resisted the idea to establish a permanent Secretariat to coordinate and monitor activities and decisions of the organization.

Copies of the guidelines for selecting the host for the permanent Secretariat will be distributed to the member Associations and published soon on the SCECSAL website, and members will be asked to express their interest to host the secretariat, and later submit detailed bids to be evaluated by a five-person independent committee.

SCECSAL member Associations from Botswana and Tanzania were absent from the Entebbe General Council meeting.

SCECSAL Secretariat issues a call for bids for XXIV SCECSAL Conference in 2022

Mr. John Paul Anbu K (r) and Mr. Justin Chisenga (l)
consulting during the SCECSAL conference in 2016 in
Ezulwini, Swaziland
[Photo: Khosie Ndalangamandla]

The SCECSAL Secretariat, hosted by the Swaziland Library and Information
Association (SWALA), on Tuesday issued a call for bids for hosting the XXIV conference of the Standing Conference of Eastern, Central and Southern African Library and Information Associations (SCECSAL) in 2022.

The call was distributed on the SCECSAL discussion forum for Presidents and Chairpersons of the SCECSAL member Associations on the Dgroups platform.

The host for the XXIV SCECSAL conference will be confirmed in Entebbe, in April 2018, thus consolidating the 2016 decision of the SCECSAL General Council to select future conference hosts four years in advance.

In an interview with the SCECSAL Forum Social Reporter, Mr. John Paul Anbu, SWALA President, welcomed the decision to announce the SCECSAL conference hosts four years in advance.

“Selecting hosts four years in advance gives a chance for the hosting country to plan well in advance. This also provides an opportunity for the associations that are not very active to put their act together to host a successful conference”, Mr. Anbu said.

Eligible member associations

Participants from Lesotho at the SCECSAL 2008
conference in Lusaka, Zambia [Photo: Justin Chisenga]

The SCECSAL General Council recently adopted new guidelines for selecting the hosts of future conferences and under these guidelines only SCECSAL member Associations from Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland are eligible to bid for the 2022 conference.

The Uganda Library and Information Association (ULIA) is set to organize the XXIII SCECSAL conference next year and the Namibian Information Workers Association in 2020.

The new guidelines divide SCECSAL into three sub-regions -  Eastern: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda; Central: Namibia, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe; and Southern: Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa – and forbid a sub-region from hosting consecutive conferences unless circumstances dictate so and the decision is approved at least by two thirds of the members of the SCECSAL General Council.

“Rotation of SCECSAL conferences among sub-regions provides equal opportunity for the associations in the sub-regions in terms of hosting and equal opportunity for participants to visit other sub-regions for conferences”, Mr. Anbu said.

The four countries in the Southern sub-region have all hosted SCECSAL conferences in the past with Lesotho first hosting the conference in 1980 and later in 1996; Botswana in 1986 and in 2010; South Africa in 2002; and Swaziland in 1988 and 2016.

Deadline for bids

The closing date for submitting the bids, which should adhere to the new guidelines, is 31 January 2018.

All bids should be submitted to:

The President
Swaziland Library and Information Association
P.O. Box 2309
Mbabane, H100
SWAZILAND
Tel: +268 2517 0153
Fax: +268 2404 3863
Email: anbuj@uniswa.sz

SCECSAL adopts a resolution to establish a Permanent Secretariat

Representatives of SCECSAL member Associations
who took the bold decision to establish a permanent
secretariat for SCECSAL [Photo: Justin Chisenga]

The General Assembly, the highest authority of the Standing Conference of Eastern, Central and Southern African Library and Information Associations (SCECSAL), resolved on 29 April 2016 at its XXIInd meeting in Ezulwini, Swaziland, to establish a Permanent Secretariat for SCECSAL.

The 11-member General Assembly also resolved to amend the SCECSAL constitution to pave the way for the establishment of the Permanent Secretariat and to put in place mechanisms to ensure proper coordination of the Forum’s activities, and monitoring implementation of its resolutions and decisions.

The members also resolved that the Swaziland Library and Information Association (SWALA) would henceforth temporarily host the SCECSAL Secretariat until such time as a permanent secretariat is established and becomes operational.

SCECSAL, established in 1974, has had its secretariat held and managed by member Associations on a rotational basis for a term of two years each.

Efforts to establish a permanent secretariat, as part of the need to reform SCECSAL, have been going on since the SCECSAL conference in 2000, in Windhoek, when Charles Lungu, the then Deputy University Librarian at the Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambia, proposed changes to “SCECSAL without altering its character” and recommend the formation of a federation of library associations in the region, which would have committees to carry out functions including those that SCECSAL has been accused of failing.

Participants at XXIInd SCECSAL in
 Ezulwini, Swaziland [Photo: Justin Chisenga]

In 2002, at the SCECSAL conference in Johannesburg, a proposal was made again to establish a permanent secretariat and was later discussed at the 2004 conference in Kampala, and in both cases the General Assembly failed to make a decision.

The 2002 and 2004 efforts were followed, in 2007, by a proposal from the Tanzania Library Association, under the guidance of Dr. Alli Mcharazo, which outlined three options for SCECSAL reforms:

• transforming SCECSAL into a regional body with registered chapters in the member countries, with Governing Council comprising of the President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Board Members [directly elected]; 
• forming a Regional Federation of Library, Information Associations and Institutions (RFLIAI) to resemble IFLA; and 
• establishing a Congress of Library and Information Associations and Institutions in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa headed by an Executive Board made up of board members from each member library Association and Institutions. 

The proposal was discussed at the SCECSAL General Assembly meetings in Lusaka (2008) and Gaborone (2010) and there was no consensus on which of the three options to be adopted, and the issue disappeared from the SCECSAL agenda until April 2016 when it re-surfaced.

Considering the failure, on several occasions, in the past by the SCECSAL General Assembly to radically reform SCECSAL, the 29 April 2016 resolution to work towards establishing a Permanent Secretariat is a very bold move.

However, unless things move at a relatively faster pace than has been the case in the past, and the Presidents and Chairpersons of the SCECSAL member Associations act in good faith during the process of setting up and choosing the member Association to host the Permanent Secretariat, SWALA might as well start preparing to host temporarily the permanent Secretariat for SCECSAL for a long time.
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Visit the SCECSAL website to download a copy of the XXII SCECSAL Resolutions.