4 January: Presidents' Report

The WILPF International Co-Presidents provided copies of their report to attendees on 3 January. Monday afternoon, they opened the meeting up to discussion of the report. Unfortunately, I did not have time to finish reading the report before this section of the meeting (partially because I gave my copy to another meeting attendee before I had a chance to read it).

You can read the President's Report on the WILPF international website.

It provides a quite thorough review of political events, the work of WILPF, and the current areas that need to be addressed. Several board members objected to the way current events were described in the report. Apparently, it is not appropriate to describe how governments describe the reasons for their actions. Personally, I believe we need to fully understand the rationale given for government actions, so that we can accurately refute erroneous reasoning, rather than simply speaking from a place of authority that doesn't acknowledge alternative viewpoints.

In any event, the discussion of the agenda and the President's Report did not leave time for the previously scheduled discussions of the Secretary General Report, Executive Committee Vacancy, and Regional Meetings. Those items were moved to later in the week.