UIA National and regional representatives: overview of activities and the future

As soon as I have been appointed Director of National and Regional Activities I thought that one my first actions was to contact the National Committees Presidents and Regional representatives and talk to them.

Acquiring direct knowledge on the ways they tackle their challenging mandate resulted to be an extremely useful lesson for me.

In fact many of them not only are aware and regularly enforce the 17 general UIA recommendations, but also go beyond them, creating additional country-based best practices and tools to make UIA more known locally and thus attracting individuals and collective members to be part of UIA. For instance focusing not only on Country capital cities, but also to all those additional large cities, which, because of the wideness of their legal environment, may constitute an interesting center of interest for meeting new potential UIA members. I'm referring to cities like Turin in Italy, or Lyon in France, Barcelona in Spain or Manchester in the UK. This is just one of the many virtuos country-based initiatives that may be adopted locally, and that, therefore, should be encouraged by UIA. The California action plan in the US is also another good example to follow.

Another issue we spoke about is human rights, with particular focus on defence of the defence where Country Committees may well take actions, provided that they are coordinated by UIA.   We all are aware that there are many places around the world where our colleagues cannot work freely, because of constant threat of imprisonment or even worse consequences. In this respect, national activities may well support locally UIA actions, since protection of Human Rights is really part of our DNA.

Another interesting area of action concerns gender equality within the Association. This has always been a key issue for the UIA, who has significantly promoted it. It is than important that we take a step forward on this path, mostly at Country level. The Presidents of National Committees might well try ensure that among their national fellow members genders are represented. This, in turn, will lead to a much hoped for alternation in the top roles of UIA, included the Presidency.

In conclusion, I truly think National and Regional representatives could also learn much from each other what are the best things to be done. For this reason, I believe ongoing communication and dialogue among them is essential as well essential is UIA work to coordinate all this. UIA should not leave the countries alone in achieving this goal, but should provide guidance and directions, that countries should use as a precious reference.

By Fabio Moretti
UIA Director of National and Regional Activities
Moretti Burgio, Milan, Italy