Ten priorities for the BWI in 2010!

After a debrief meeting about congress to enhance performance, the BWI workshop including headquarters and regional staff looked at ten priorities for 2010. Among the priorities, Multinationals (MNCs), Organising IFIs projects and other public works, Migration, Wood and Forestry, Sports campaign, Green construction, Women and youth, Communication, Building global and regional capacity, and Financial sustainability.

The workshop pointed at the importance of a coordinated action on the monitoring of international framework agreements at global level and MNCs at regional level. On IFIs, the regions will carry out a mapping exercise of World Bank-IFC projects in order to target one project on organising for each region.

The workshop also stressed the need for the organisation to look at migration flows from a global perspective. We will develop our work in Africa/Middle East and Latin America/Caribbean and continue in Asia and Europe.

On wood and forestry, we will further develop our work on organising MNCs and campaign on chain of custody. There will be a Global Forestry conference at the end of the year.

The BWI will also formulate a clear communication strategy and engage in two global campaigns, one on migration in December 2010 and the other on sports. The Sports campaign will target the World Cup in South Africa, the Commonwealth Games 2010 in India, Euro 2012 in Ukraine and Poland, and WC 2014 Brazil. In addition, the BWI will launch the "Voices of women from BWI sectors" on international women's day and organise a campaign around the international youth day on 12 August.

The International will write a policy paper on green construction and map out different activities in order to prepare for the global conference in 2011.

The general secretary supports training and the idea of setting up new tools to build the global capacity of the staff.

Finally, the organisation will look into its financial sustainability and establish a 10 year plan taking into consideration increase in affiliation fees and costs in the region.

The workshop was held in Chexbres Switzerland from 2 to 4 February 2010.