WITFOR 2007 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 24-26 August 2007 Report to the IFIP General Assembly meeting of 12-13 September 2008 1. General With 1255 registered participants from 82 countries, WITFOR 2007 was a big success. Even if the no- shows are taken into account, the number has been over 1000 participants over the three days of the event. The rich program and the hospitality of the hosts have made this event one to remember. A lot of lively discussions took place and many people have gotten involved in WITFOR and will continue to do so. For a more elaborate general report see the article in the IFIP Newsletter of September 2007. 2. Deliverables • Presentations / speeches. Unfortunately only a few presentations have been made available. This is a lesson for the next editions, a mechanism must be created to ensure that presentations and speeches are made available on the website. • Book with work of commissions. The original plan was to publish a pre-conference book with the IFIP Press. Because of timing problems eventually this was not possible. The manuscript has been finalized. The book (with ISBN number 978-3-901882-23-4 from IFIP Press) is available online (via both the IFIP and WITFOR websites) as a downloadable pdf. It will be included in the IFIP Digital Library. A sponsor has been found to print the book in Ethiopia. The printed version is expected to be available end of August. For next editions of WITFOR, the aim should be a pre- conference book, this will save considerable time, efforts and money. The editor(s) should not have other tasks in WITFOR. • Video. The organizers arranged for most sessions to be video taped. The plan was to create a compilation of the whole conference which could then be made available on the website and on DVD. The video has been produced, distribution is being discussed. 3. Committees and composition a. International Steering Committee The ISC was composed of Dipak Khakhar, SE, chair (until January 2007), Leon Strous, NL, program chair / chair (from January 2007), Debretsion Gebremichael, ET, chair of the National Organizing Committee, Bogale Demissie, ET, representing EITPA, the Ethiopian IFIP member society, Klaus Brunnstein, DE, and Basie von Solms, SA (both from March 2007) The ISC has met eight times in Addis Ababa, including one meeting at the time of the conference and one meeting after the conference. In the preparation phase also two meetings with H.E. Teferra Waluwa, Minister of Capacity Building, took place. b. National Organizing Committee / Subcommittees The NOC had six subcommittees responsible for issues like the venue, protocol, security, marketing, sponsorships, registration, etc. 1 c. Honorary conference chair The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, H.E. Meles Zenawi, was the Honorary Conference Chair. He wrote a welcome letter that was published on the website and he opened the conference. His opening speech is included in the WITFOR 2007 book. 4. Commissions a. Themes / topics The eight commissions had the same themes as in 2005: - Agriculture; - Building the Infrastructure; - Economic Opportunities; - Education; - Empowerment & Participation; - Environment; - Health; - Social, Ethical & Legal Aspects. b. Chairs / officers The commissions had three co-chairs (in some occasions four): one on behalf of IFIP, one from a developing country and one from a UN body or an NGO. An overview of the co-chairs is included in an annex to this report. A number of the commission co-chairs was appointed very late in the preparation phase due to non-performance or late withdrawals by predecessors. This has made it very difficult for them to compile the program for their sessions and finding the required spread in types of presentations and projects. Added to the timing problem was the problem that no budget for supporting speakers was available and only very late (April / May 2007) it was formally agreed that some money could be spent on supporting speakers. Given these difficulties and taking into account the some speakers that agreed to come but could not make it due to failing logistic and administrative arrangements, it is an admirable accomplishment by all commissions to realize the program that was presented. This was made possible also thanks to the considerable efforts by the organizers to get sponsors for this budget item. c. Activities / pre-WITFOR events The plan was to organize (or participate in) smaller events in the period between WITFOR 2005 and WITFOR 2007. Given the time and, more important, budget constraints, this happened only marginally. The Education Commission took part in the E-Learning Africa conference that took place in Addis Ababa in Spring 2007. A fund-raising symposium was organized by the NOC in March 2007. Preceding the WITFOR conference, the Education Commission organized a Life Long Learning Agora seminar at Addis Ababa University. 5. Finances The financial result of WITFOR has been reported end of February 2008 by the organizers. WITFOR 2007 ended with a positive result of around € 65.000 (ETB 966.878). This is a very good result, but the cost for printing the book and producing the video are not yet included. The surplus will be used by the organizers for activities in the spirit of WITFOR. For WITFOR 2007 IFIP had to get financially involved, especially with respect to the costs for speakers. The goal of presenting results from projects in developing countries could only be met if financial support would be available for speakers from those countries. In the first versions of the budget there was no item foreseen for these expenses. At a late stage (May 2007) this had to be added. Funds for this item had to be found in sponsorships and by cutting costs on other items. With hindsight it appears to have been a good decision to spend money on speakers, given the rich program which otherwise would have never been possible. The decision to spend some IFIP funds on WITFOR 2007 has been reported to and approved by the General Assembly in August 2007. The financial consequences for IFIP are: • No IFIP fee will be paid. • IFIP has pre-funded a number of speakers. Some of this money was claimed back from the organizers, part of it was paid by sponsors. 2 Amount Claimed Claimed Status paid by back back from IFIP Payment to speakers and participants 8.175 8.175 Finnish Paid under a sponsorship from the Finnish Embassy in Embassy in SA. Due to procedural South issues it was not possible for the Africa Finnish Embassy to pay the speakers in a timely manner and therefore IFIP pre-funded this. Payment to a number of speakers. 10.325 5.575 WITFOR Paid Due to unclear procedures and NOC agreements with the organizers, IFIP had to pay part of these costs. Payment to Leon Strous for final 1.925 1.925 Leon Strous Paid ISC meeting in October. The original claim has been submitted to WITFOR NOC and has been agreed. Payments to two speakers that had to 6.120 6.120 speakers One payment was wait too long for their money. The received by IFIP, the original claims have been submitted second payment was to WITFOR NOC and have been made by the NOC but agreed. had not reached the speaker (and hence not been paid back to IFIP). Payments to three speakers for 2.485 0 --- Not claimed back which no agreement was made with the organizers. TOTALS 29.030 21.795 Cost for 7.235 IFIP Due to one untraceable transaction, 29.030 18.995 Cost for 10.035 an amount of € 2.800 was not IFIP received by IFIP. NB 1: Note that the exact amounts will be slightly different due to rounding of the figures in this overview, currency exchange rate differences and bank costs. NB 2 : Some speakers have not claimed back their costs, even if they had been entitled to, given the agreements with other speakers. NB 3 : To give a fair picture, the amount paid directly by the organizers to speakers and commission co-chairs was considerable. Hotel rooms for about 75 persons were directly paid by the NOC, flight tickets for 50 persons were arranged directly by the NOC with Ethiopian Airlines and in addition claims in the amount of 20.000 Euro were paid afterwards to speakers (not counting the claims in the table above but claims that have been settled directly). Clear procedures and agreements are absolutely essential, not only between IFIP and the NOC but also towards the commissions and speakers. Decisions about the amount available for supporting speakers need to be taken timely enough to allow speakers to make cost efficient arrangements. 6. Website The development of the WITFOR 2007 website has been restarted three times. This has led to considerable loss of time (and money) and has been a major drawback in promoting the event and getting registrations on time. Also the arrangements and technical possibilities for providing and uploading content should be carefully evaluated for future editions. Additional support staff in the 3 final stage of preparations managed to solve a number of the problems and got the website functioning on an acceptable level. 7. Marketing Marketing of WITFOR 2007 started rather late. Main reasons for this were the problems with the website and the fact that the program details were finalized late. The approach and list of channels and media also need to be evaluated for future editions. Nevertheless, considerable efforts were made by the NOC. A special awareness and fund raising symposium was organized and interviews were given. Particularly helpful was a press conference that was attended by more than 25 journalists and it was covered on national television (prime time, news).