Democracy in action

By Norah Matovu Winyi, PAB chairperson

The Policy Advisory Board (PAB) chairpersons attended the MS Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at Borup’s High School in Copenhagen. It was interesting to witness democracy in action in another cultural setting.
At the start it proved difficult to follow the proceedings because the translation equipment decided to remain uncooperative. It was only after Ulla Strøbech, the country director from Uganda, intervened that we finally settled to get on with the business of the meeting.

The AGM was well attended and most of the PAB chairpersons had the opportunity to meet former development workers who had served in their respective countries. The discussions were lively, well organised and the younger members were particularly active and articulate on a number of controversial issues.

The major outcome of the AGM was the adoption of the new MS vision and mission statement. The PAB Chairpersons were given the opportunity to make a statement at the AGM, which mainly focused on the role of PAB in the future MS. This was well received and the members mandated the MS board to study the proposals further to see how best the contributions from the MSiS program could be institutionalised in MS.

The AGM ended with the election of six members to the MS board, which is composed of 13 members, plus the secretary general of MS who is an ex-officio member. The election results sent ripples throughout the meeting as the scores for the candidates were read out.

The members realised that the only person who had expressed interest in the post of chairperson of MS did not receive enough votes to make it to the board. This was seeing democracy in action and how it can bring up unexpected surprises sometimes. It was obvious that there was a crisis and as we left Denmark the new chairperson was yet to be named!!!

To end our stay in Denmark the PAB chairpersons had the opportunity to meet with the staff of MS Denmark and the members of the board. Members expressed interest in cementing the ties between the programs of MS in Denmark and in other parts of the world.

To crown it all the information officer brought in a number of journalists to talk to some of the chairpersons. I must say that this year’s PAB participation in the annual meetings in Denmark was remarkable and opened many doors for future collaboration. The challenge for all of us is to follow through all the proposals made.