Bond Annual Conference and AGM 2008: Working Together in Challenging Times

The Annual Conference and AGM, held on 4 November 2008, was our most successful event yet with 213 delegates attending. The wide-range of member organisations represented and an excellent speech from Minouche Shafik, DFID Permanent Secretary, ensured that there was plenty of lively networking and debate on the key challenges facing the international development sector.

The day started with a challenging speech from Minouche Shafik that focussed on the future role of the UK development community in the UK, Europe and globally. She shared her vision of a dynamic relationship between DFID and UK NGOs and gave her thoughts on where we, DFID and Bond, can make the most difference together. The range of thought-provoking questions from members demonstrated the high level of interest in NGO-DFID relations, on DFID's wider work and also the changing external contexts in which NGOs work.

Read a transcript of Minouche's speech.

Richard Hawkes, whose term as Bond Chair has come to an end, presented an overview of the year celebrating what we have achieved together. Nick Roseveare, Chief Executive, looked to the year ahead, focussing on two priority areas for Bond - that of providing appropriate services to the membership and providing a clear leadership role to the sector.

Elections

Eight new trustees were elected to the Board:

Small organisations

Tariq Khokhar, Aptivate

Nicola Macbean, The Rights Practice

Michael Hammer, One World Trust

Medium organisations

Matthew Snell, International Service

Large organisations

Anna Feuchtwang, EveryChild (re-elected for a second term)

Paul Valentin, Christian Aid

Willem van Eekelen, Islamic Relief

Dominic White, WWF

Richard Hawkes, Margaret Gardner, George Gelber, Tracey Mitchell and Margaret O'Grady all stood down from the Board.

More information about the composition of the Bond Board.

Throughout the day, members actively and enthusiastically engaged with each other, the Bond Board and staff, providing a rich mix of ideas, opinions and information. The participation and contribution from all those who attended ensured that the day was a great success.

Afternoon Sessions

The afternoon sessions covered four particular areas:

Organisational values

This interactive session looked at the importance of organisational values, exploring a number of perspectives on this topic, including:

What are ‘organisational values'? What do we really mean by commonly held values in the sector such as ‘transparency' and ‘accountability'?
Do we all share the same understanding of our organisation's values? Are these really demonstrated through the way we work with our staff, colleagues, partners and beneficiaries?
What is the ‘value of values'? What effect might they have on an organisation's relationship with its partners and beneficiaries?
What role do line managers, and others in an organisation, play in upholding an organisation's values? Do organisational values have a role in staff turnover/retention?
What activities do we do (processes, procedures etc) that may either help or hinder us in upholding our values, particularly in relation to human resources activities (such as recruitment, retention, and staff development)?

We benefited from the expert input into this debate from Deepti Sastry (One World Trust), Jonathon Potter (People In Aid), and Nick Greenwood (IIED). One of the themes which came out of the discussion was that organisational values can be difficult to uphold in practice, that leaders and managers can play a key role in doing this and that informal ways of working (style, approach, communication) are often as important in doing so as the formal ways (policies, procedures and systems).

Rights-based development: The future

A brief overview the rights-based approach to development was given and three areas of work were identified: 1) developing mechanisms to protect rights, 2) immediate responses through service provision, and 3) strengthening the rights community.

A lively discussion followed between the 75 delegates who attended the session and the panellists Miranda Kazantzis (Amnesty International), Diana Mulligan (Sight Savers International), Dr Dennis Pain (DfID) and Angela Penrose (Grow Up Free From Poverty Coalition).

The key points raised were:

The problem of identification: whose rights do we prioritise?
If the ultimate responsibility to fulfil rights belongs to governments what role do NGOs have? Would it be better to devolve the responsibility, and the subsequent control over resources, to the local level?
What role does faith have in human rights?
Is there a danger in over reliance on human rights?
The Declaration of Human Rights is specifically for individual rights only. How can we integrate collective rights in to the discourse?
Is there a right not to be poor? And, if so, how do you mobilise to realise this right?
Are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) rights based? Does the stipulation of targets undermine the universality of human rights? Is their a need to change the MDGs from supply side to demand side?

The interesting mix of questions, comments, examples and experience put forward meant that delegates left with an appreciation of the differing perspectives, angles and complexities of the debates associated with a rights-based approach to development.

Shared leadership 2010 and beyond: The key collaborative challenges for the international development sector

The session was well attended by CEOs and directors and featured provocative and interesting presentations from Simon Maxwell (Overseas Development Institute), Peter McDermott (Children's Investment Fund Foundation) and Gib Bulloch (Accenture Development Partnerships). It was chaired by Richard Hawkes, VSO and Chair of Bond.

The discussions ranged from managing change in the sector to taking a business approach to development, via collaboration, innovation, risk and collective leverage. Interesting questions and comments include:

How do we describe the value and effectiveness of what we do?
Is the aid industry transitional - are we trying to deliver change using a system that has outlived its usefulness?
Is the customer the donor or the beneficiary? Is this a political or a technical issue?
We have a much stronger capacity to leverage and influence the policy debate by working together
Is there a role for Bond here in brokering mergers? Or in looking at the shared services approach to collaboration?

Many issues were raised during the course of the session that we will take forward over the coming months.

Advocacy and campaigning for policy change: Harnessing our collective power for greater future influence and impact

This participatory session addressed two key areas:

1. Our collective priorities and upcoming opportunities for change internationally in 2009 and early 2010

2. Our shared priorities for UK Government action on development ahead of the next UK General Election

The sessions focused heavily on the global economic crisis as well as joint influencing on policy. Delegates shared their thoughts on what a coherent NGO response to the global crisis would be and what our priorities are for UK government action on development are in the next 18 months and how we plan to approach the election campaign itself. This sparked challenging discussions about how we can work together to maximise the impact of our advocacy and campaigning.

The Bond Advocacy and Representation team will be engaging with members over the coming months to take forward some of the points raised and build a comprehensive action plan of work in these areas. A summary of the session will be available shortly on request from Bond member organisations.

Bond member organisations in the session included Plan UK, Christian Aid, Panos, World Vision, Akina Mama Wa Afrika, Concern Worldwide, ActionAid, Merlin, Islamic Relief and Tearfund. Partner networks participating included the Trade Justice Movement, Jubilee Debt Campaign, Bretton Woods Project and the TUC.