This post was written for ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz, May 2016.

The Institute of Cultural Affairs is a global community of non-profit organisations advancing human development worldwide. The ICAI network comprises member organisations and related groups in over 40 countries.  The role of ICA International is to facilitate peer-to-peer interchange, learning and mutual support across the network, for greater and deeper impact. ICA International maintains consultative status with UN ECOSOC, UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO & FAO.

At our April meeting the ICAI Board agreed a draft agenda for the upcoming June 23 online General Assembly meetings, which has now been circulated to members. As usual, two online meetings will be held at 10am & 5pm UK time to accommodate different times zones, and online voting will be by surveymonkey over the following 10 days. Please contact us if you have any additions or revisions to the agenda, and please let us have any papers to be shared (and in particular any resolutions for a vote) before the next Board meeting on May 19 so that we can circulate them soon after that.

We have also announced a change of date for our second GA meetings of the year, to be held now on October 20 instead of in December. This is to bring forward the Board election so that any new members will have a couple of months induction period before their new term begins.

We are grateful to ICA Japan Board member Shizue Inagaki for accepting the Board’s invitation to the membership to be nominated to represent ICA International at the 66th United Nations DPI NGO Conference in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea from 30 May-1 June “Education for Global Citizenship: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Together“.  Please contact us or ICA Japan  if you would like to connect with Shizue about the conference.

Best wishes to ICAs and ICA colleagues from accross the Americas for their face-to-face regional meeting being hosted this month  by ICA Peru.