NI governance review
By Loa Dalgaard Worm, director of FSC Denmark and Uwe Sayer, Director of FSC Germany: It is difficult to act when you don’t know what your role is? Try to imagine a theatre with no roles for the actors and consider weather you would like to work there - or even pay to see the show! This lack of definition has been true for FSC National Initiatives (NIs) for years now, and NIs have been stressing the need for a role clarification at any opportunity they got.
The process has been moving slowly, but finally there seems to be a breakthrough with the governance review process taking a big leap forward. NIs are positive and hopeful.
Beside standard setting de facto many NIs took responsibility and started representing FSC in their country by delivering services around market activities and communication. Many NIs have been successful carrying out these tasks but within a fast growing system the increasing demand for services have come to a critical point.
Definition of responsibilities
Within the proposed draft, some NIs worry about the individually negotiated contracts. We stress the need for a formal procedure that describes fundamental baselines and responsibilities for NIs and for FSC IC under which such contracts can be negotiated. Once a contract is signed it should be automatically renewable with options for renegotiations. As soon as roles are clarified it should be a natural result that revenues created by agreed roles are shared in a fair way.
Global networking
To manage FSCs needs, we support the idea of Regional Councils as operational platforms to identify regional strategic needs. For NIs that rely on income from national membership revenues it is crucial to harmonize national and international memberships.
We support the idea of ONE membership across national and international level, but these memberships should be managed and maintained at a national level with a database maintained by FSC IC for a nominal fee. Various models including supporting and voting memberships should be clarified in regards to ensure that problems around quorum issues are well addressed. We also support the progress to open the board to NIs and to strengthen dispute resolution mechanisms.
Big support
With the presented draft in the current governance review process the board of directors have shown clear understanding of the need for fundamental changes in the network. The presented draft shows serious actions towards handing over responsibility to mature NIs and to support less developed NIs in priority areas. Many NIs see this as a fundamentally positive change in the relationship between the international and national level. We see the paper developed by the board as a good starting point and look forward to see the hopefully positive outcome.
