Interim 2023 Report

Interim is the mid-year meeting for IFSA officials which usually takes place between late December and early February for a week. This year, the meeting took place from the 1st to the 15th of February in Makassar, Indonesia hosted by the IFSA LC UNHAS. For the first time in three years, an in-person IFSA officials meeting was held outside of Europe which allowed Asia-Pacific officials to actively join. Thanks to the experience of remote communication during the COVID pandemic, the meeting was held in a hybrid way; thus, encouraging people to join from all over the world, doubling and tripling the number of officials joining.

Officials had an opportunity to discuss the results of the first half of the term, learn about other officials’ work, gain motivation, and brainstorm ideas for the remaining term. In addition to the work outcomes, the Interim OC made sure to provide participants with interesting lectures from the local researchers as well as excursions around Makassar City. This all played a positive role in the IFSA officials’ meeting achievements, which are described further in this document.

Main outcomes

The ideas and feedback that we received from the officials during the Interim are highly valuable for IFSA since it provides a common understanding of the biggest issues that our officials are facing as well as solutions to overcome them. From a general perspective, the different problems identified were connected into broader categories (see Table 1).

While reviewing the outcomes, consensus was established on the importance of the implementation phase. This means that IFSA will take the recommendations provided by its members and the board will take the responsibility of initiating the implementation of the solutions—it is important to mention that this implementation phase only will work if we all do it together.

The biggest challenges that have been identified after the interim meeting have a direct relation with the workload of certain commissions, communication between and within departments, capacity development of our officials, maintaining engagement and motivation, change over, and understanding of the different roles and funding issues.

With this, we have developed a table that summarizes the findings and provides possible solutions to the different problems that were identified.

Strategy

Problems identified	Possible solutions	Comments	Implement
CommComms Workload (ED communication + last minute requests = Burn out)	Train external department to have a designated design/communication person per commission Create pre-designed templates for specific type of posts which will then be filled by external department officials, courtesy of the Communication Commission		High Priority – Pilot before GA
Inactive officials (Unresponsive officials and/or intermittent participation in meetings and activities)	Find motivated/responsible people beforehand.		Low Priority
Capacity Building (Guidelines, Time management, Concept note, facilitating, etc)	Create guidelines for necessary skills for officials. This includes concept note making, facilitating meetings, creating meeting agenda, etc. This would be included in the Commission Guidelines. Increase collaboration between CDC and External Department in capacity building workshops to utilize partner resources for forestry topics that can be used for TreE-Learning, Webinar Series, and other related activities Maximize collaboration with partners and IFSA-SAN by initiating regular workshops with them	Many of the issues we are currently facing are rooted from the capacity building initiatives in the IFSA Officials space	High Priority
Motivation (Inactive officials, Motivational sessions, in-person meetings, informal communication)	Organize regular informal meetings/hangouts among officials Focus on fundraising activities to create more in-person participation opportunities for officials as a way to somehow incentivize their work during the term Develop motivational workshops	Significant changes in the officials’ motivation could be linked to lack of interactive, informal meetings; funding opportunities	High Priority
Teamwork (Everything too formal, working colleagues v/s buddies)	Promote interdepartmental/intercommission/intersub-commission collaboration and less independent work for activities/events “Introduction week” at the beginning of the term – similar to the ways it happening in Universities at the beginning of the semester	This can be improved through capacity building workshops on teamwork	High Priority
Communication (Between departments, within departments – commissions – sub-commissions)	Schedule regular Heads of Commissions meetings to communicate news or updates from each commission so that other departments are informed as well Make Sub-Commission meetings with HoCs a regular activity as it is a platform for consultation and troubleshooting	This can be improved through capacity building workshops on communication strategies	High Priority
Lack of Funding (Budget Distribution, current support is not sustainable)	Create a crowdfunding campaign to decentralize financial support from partners and membership fees Initiate workshops on how individuals/officials can look for their own funding Prepare booklets that can be used to apply for funding for events and delegations	This can be improved through capacity building workshops	High Priority
More Big Projects (Such as YFPD, Job Fair, etc)	Organize major projects such as Job Fair and YFPD on a regular basis in collaboration with partners Biannual YFPD? (Or another event with partners involvement) Organize meetings (e.g. introduction session for officials, expectation setting, open mic sessions) to increase the involvement of officials in general IFSA activities Host Open Mic sessions at the beginning of the term	Such flagship projects increase the exposure of IFSA to non-IFSA audiences and it provides us platforms to share our advocacy. It is also important that we create events where non-IFSA members are also invited to increase number of prospective LCs or members.	Mid Priority
Gap between LCs and IFSA (Communication of opportunities, involvement in activities, new officials?)	Maximize communication channels (e.g. Instagram stories, Facebook posts) to periodically share opportunities and LC news Encourage LCs to attend their respective region’s Coffee Hour by giving them a particular role in the meeting and/or the possibility to share about their LC’s achievements		Mid Priority
Innovative sessions (Prepare events before time and with intended outcomes, working sessions, fun session)	Increase collaboration with Heads of Commission in organizing activities and accomplishing tasks Host regular open mic sessions (e.g. at the beginning of the term, during interim, at the end of the term) to give IFSA members/officials the opportunity to give suggestions for sessions and activities/events Promote interdepartmental/intercommission/intersub-commission collaboration for more innovative sessions		Low Priority
Change-over (Needs to be improved, officials feel lost when starting the term, task list)	Make some key positions longer period Encourage officials to create more in-depth and detailed list of tasks and responsibilities for change-over		High Priority
Strategy (Members aren’t aware of the strategy and its implications)	Create a series of videos explaining the strategy to be posted on social media and other communication channels and shared to officials and IFSA members Create a workshop at the beginning of the term explaining the Strategy and its applications to new officials		Mid Priority
Inspiration (Officials would like to feel inspired and have mentors within IFSA and IFSA alumni)	Create regular career dinners with IFSA-SAN Have board members share their experience in informal sessions such as the IFSA Officials roundtable discussion Focus on the implementation of the mentorship program in the next terms, in collaboration with IFSA-SAN and partners Initiate regular peer-learning sessions		Mid Priority
Conflict solving (We can’t forget that there are problems between officials)	Develop workshop on conflict resolution Include relevant guidelines in the Commission Guidelines	This can be improved through capacity building workshops	Mid Priority
Discord engagement (People are inactive and don`t understand discord)	Promote the use of the Discord channels by conducting meetings there Promote the Discord server on social media and other communication channels Host informal events on Discord to promote community-building within IFSA	User engagement on the IFSA Discord has been low lately; encourage LCs to conduct formal and informal meetings on the server
Official needs (Internet connection or other basic needs)	Encourage officials to apply for the development fund	This increases officials and members’ access to opportunities	Mid Priority

Next Steps

As previously discussed, the next steps are key to solving the issues identified. This includes the prioritization of the problems that we want to address, agreeing on the best solutions to approach them, and implementing these recommendations.

The immediate next steps will be to generate a meeting in which all the officials will be invited to join so they can be part of the decisions and implementation phase. The IFSA board will facilitate the space and provide a leading role in the implementation but this will not be feasible if officials do not get involved and participate in the meetings or discussions.

The principal objective of involving officials in both the decision-making and the implementation phase addresses the need for communication, transparency, workload distribution, and empowerment of future IFSA leaders. We highly encourage the officials interested in taking a bigger role next term to be involved in this process, thus it will be a concrete example of the way that IFSA works.

As long-term steps, there is the possibility of proposing changes to the IFSA statutes if we believe it necessary. We encourage the Heads of Commissions and Sub-Commissions to evaluate improvements and how they can exercise these changes in their own Commissions, Departments, and IFSA as a whole.

Conclusion

The amount of information that we were able to gather during this week of meetings was amazing. For this, we would like to thank everyone who attended the sessions and took the initiative to share their own experiences and perspectives.

For future interim meetings, we recommend that more innovative and diverse sessions are established, as well as working sessions that provide not only recommendations but also outputs. After identifying the bigger categories these were prioritized in a sense of urgency and feasibility of implementation.

In conclusion, we would like to thank the Organizing Committee, LC UNHAS, for their amazing efforts in making the event possible hybrid and for accommodating our in-person participants; the in-person officials for putting their time and resources to take part in this event; and, last but not least, the online participants who stayed awake all night for their commitment towards IFSA.

We look forward to the future with hope and joy and we believe that the inputs collected are fundamental for improving the association. It is time that we take action and together find a way to overcome these important issues. It is on us, the IFSA family, to improve the association term by term in order to achieve our mission of a world that appreciates forests.