Thursday - Motions, Voting and Coming Together for Her World

Thursday 

After a fantastic day at Forum workshops sharing experiences and learning's between MOs, on Thursday morning it was back to the governance side of things with voting sessions on the proposed motions and amendments. You can read more about the motions in more detail in Document 6b here: https://www.wagggs.org/en/about-us/governance/world-conference/36th-world-conference/documents/ 

During the opening business of the conference on Monday, (which seems quite a long time ago already!) we voted and passed the first set of 10 motions, including those that affect the constitution of WAGGGS. During today’s session we had a grand total of 23 proposed motions and amendments to get through. Huge thank you and acknowledgement of the Conference Chair Sandra and her team as well of the procedural team led by Helen. They did an outstanding job at explaining the governance points, allowing meaningful debate and still keeping us to time. 

This was even more impressive when you remember that conference voted in favour of allowing motions to be proposed during the conference, with a Tuesday deadline ready for vote on Thursday! 

Some of the key motions that were passed by the World Conference: 

- 🎉 the World Board will conduct an investigation into the barriers preventing young women from applying for WAGGGS governance roles and develops concrete actions to address this 🎉

- Uganda 🇺🇬will host the 37th World Conference in 2020

- WAGGGS to continue ongoing work of cooperation with WOSM through advocacy on global issues affecting Guiding and Scouting📣

- WAGGGS recognises the importance and advantages of a girl-only environment and undertakes to protect this important aspect of girl guiding and girl scouting 🙋

- World Conference fees will continue to offer discount based on under 30 delegates and wealth band💷

- Development of tools around girl guiding and girl scouting educational methods for different age groups👭👫

- Recommendation to host a Girl Guide/ Girl Scout Experienced Forum in the next triennium👭

- Arabic is now the 4th official language of WAGGGS alongside English, French and Spanish 📢

- Kusafiri is continued to be supported with a dedicated programme of events, budgets and scholarships🌍

- Agenda 2030 and Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security is integrated into the 2018-20 Global Strategic Plan ☮️

- Coordination of International Commissioner contact details on an annual basis📝

- the World Board encourages the preparation of MOs for future World Conferences✏️

We were particularly excited about the response to proposed motion 32, which Bekky had written in partnership with Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Austria and co-signed by a further 11 MOs. The motion passed with 103 in favour, one of the largest majority’s of the morning and received a standing ovation from the floor.  

The voting session finished with passionate debates around the final two motions relating to our relationship with WOSM and the importance of girls-only space. As the UK delegation we were really pleased that both motions passed and spoke to support this during the session. As a girls only organisation with a good relationship with our WOSM counterparts, UK Scouting we are strongly in support of a girls only environment but also recognise that co-education is important and other models are of equal value. It is important for each MO to chose a model that is right for their situation and we are confident that WAGGGS can continue to support the girl only environment and to work closely with WOSM on issues affecting Guiding and Scouting.  

“Coming together for Her World” was the fantastic afternoon and opportunity to hear from many of WAGGGS partners and provided us with lots to think about in our own work.  

We hear about the Sustainable Development Goals and how WAGGGS’s expertise and priorities of non formal education, leadership development and advocacy are shaping what we do. 

We also heard from U-Report, TheGoals.org, UPS Foundation, Dove, UN Women and an exciting new fundraising platform set up to support WAGGGS – the World Guide Foundation.