IOI | IOI Board Meeting successfully held in New York

After two years of online meetings due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the IOI Board of Directors finally was able to meet in person at its 2022 Board Meeting from 11 to 12 May 2022 in New York, USA.

IOI President Chris Field and IOI Secretary General Werner Amon were pleased to welcome IOI Board members from all six regions on the premises of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Manhattan.

The IOI Board approved membership of seven institutions from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and North America. “We are delighted to welcome new members to our IOI family; they will be notified by the IOI General Secretariat soon,” said IOI Secretary General Werner Amon.

IOI President Chris Field also took the opportunity to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the IOI and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) during this year’s Board Meeting. "The memorandum is a strong foundation upon which we can and will continue to learn from each other to provide the most informed and effective work for the communities we have the privilege to serve" said Mr Field. For more information on this topic, kindly click on this link.

The meeting had a specific UN-related focus with reports about the IOI’s UN Working Group and on the IOI’s efforts to obtain an observer status with the UN General Assembly. A guest presentation was held by UN Ombudsman, Ms. Shireen Dodson.

With the Board’s approval, the IOI will also organise a wide array of trainings in the next membership year with a specific focus on topics like torture prevention in Latin America, media skills and a new round of regional subsidies will again be made available to our members to fund Ombudsman-related projects in the regions.

Next year, the Board meeting will be held at the IOI General Secretariat’s premises in Vienna.