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Retirement of Executive Vice-President of EAAP | ||
| Number 45 | |||
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Professor Jean Boyazoglu has announced his retirement as Executive Vice President of EAAP. He is approaching the age of 65 and will leave office early in 2003. His successor, Dr. Andrea Rosati has been appointed by the EAAP Council and will take up his appointment from 1 November 2002.
After Professor Boyazoglu announced his retirement he was offered a contract for three years by OIE in Paris, France to serve as Head of the Department of Regional Activities. In this position he will work with the five Regional Offices of OIE placed in different parts of the world. As Head of this Department, Professor Boyazoglu will be involved in regional activities including conferences. He will be available for liaison with EAAP.
Dear Friends,
As I approach my 65th birthday on the 29 November 2002 year I feel the time has come to move on. At a similar age my master Jacques Poly voluntarily left his post of President and Chief Executive Officer of the INRA - the French Research Organization - moving to another field and activity while making it clear that he would be available to help and advise at INRA if asked, while others should take the operational lead.
On 1 May 2003 I shall have completed a further three year contract period during my second involvement with EAAP. I believe it is logical now to find the right person to take over. If my successor needs my support and the Association wishes it to be so, I could be available to sustain on an ad-hoc basis - as long as my health and personal interests allow it and if, in my opinion, situations evolve placidly.
You will recall that I was asked to come back to the EAAP Secretariat by the then President Philip Solms-Lich and the then past-President Sandro Nardone at a difficult moment in the Association's life. Since October 2001 I have interacted with several of you - directly or indirectly. My feeling is that it is my responsibility to try and ensure - as far as humanly possible - that the transfer of the EAAP Executive office is handled in an orderly way to ensure there will be no destabilization for the medium and long-term life-span of EAAP.
During these past five years I have put whatever experience, knowledge and personal strengths I have to serve the organization and to contribute in helping Council and the Scientific Advisory Committee to enable EAAP to keep pace, not only with scientific developments but also and above all, with the rapid changes in society. This focus means building capacity to address the new challenges found in our path. I have tried to do the same with ICAR, WAAP and RBI. This experience has been a watershed. I would like now to thank all those -and they are many - that helped me with advice and direct voluntary input, during the past five years.
Keeping things on the right track while at the same time pushing for change means sometimes trying to press blood out of a stone. Fortunately the loyalty of the little group in EAAP's Secretariat has made it possible to move without too many hiccoughs; we seem to thrive only as a sort of family business and we never operate successfully as an industrial concern. It is rather a "quality products home industry" and could never be a multi-national company.
To survive in today's context it is not sufficient to operate as we did 10 or 20 years ago. We must be ever vigilant and present everywhere and at any time. Every path we fail to walk and every door we do not open gives others - probably less voluntarist and certainly greedier - the chance to profit and to move into the gaps even if service to society is not their goal. To evolve further we need a high profile and we must project an image of true efficiency even though small - for in Schumacher's words, "small is beautiful". What must be emphasized, and I trust you will appreciate the nuances, is that in the past five years with no additional personnel we became a true service International Non Governmental Organization (INGO) and we more than doubled our activities in administering, serving and monitoring. As funds were never freely available this happened only through extra personal inputs and went hand in hand with daily sacrifices.
In the past the organizations handled by the Secretariat were operated as simple voluntarist INGOs based mainly on an approach of friends and professionals meeting and operating on an ad-hoc basis. None of them had a legally recognized status; and therefore no legal administrative duties and official accountability. This changed totally for EAAP back in 1993, for ICAR in 1998 and for WAAP in 2001 which also saw the creation of a service company for ICAR. These changes meant long procedures to achieve the most suitable registration status in each case. This enhanced status facilitates recognition, visibility and the appropriate full accountability; it also increases heavily the burden of the workload in the office.
Here we must recall the quality and quantity of work delivered by the Secretariat over and above the routine of day to day activities. The EAAP secretariat should not be overwhelmed and overburdened by the need of searching for funds...an action which is certainly rather the responsibility of the elected officers than that of the permanent secretariat of the organization.
Since 1996/97 I have underlined that to engage efficiently at a high level with our work and responsibilities EAAP needs 20-25% additional annual funds. In this I believe I am sustained by the auditors' reports. However, the only funds that came through the elected officers were from the Italian Ministry of Agriculture while the approaches towards the EU resulted in funding for the Animal Genetic Resources Projects. Therefore the Secretariat decided to take the bull by the horns to show that fund-raising is possible. Clearly, though, it should not be a task for the Secretariat but for all of us.
Please remember that, in 2001 we not only succeeded in finding funds to cover outstanding and necessary new expenses but we filled in the gap of €90.000,00 that resulted from our necessary growth activities; this would have been impossible if we had not looked for outside projects. Fighting for funds in Brussels and elsewhere is not the easiest task for an Executive Officer of an INGO. However, to take one example, in responding to the continuous requests from our scientists for more scholarships, the non-EAAP funded scholarships increase this year to 37 - thanks to Jim Flanagan's help at the EU and Tom Sutherland's generosity. In total scholars will number around 50 which is a long way from the 10-12 traditionally awarded from EAAP's own meager funding. Of course, this adds extra demands to the tasks of the secretariat.
The Secretariat is now, in my humble opinion, a functional and quite flexible but...overworked group. Valerie and Elena are not anymore secretaries but true assistants, sustained by external advisory support which they learned where and how to find. The publications, information and web-system is now most efficiently run by Cesare Mosconi, while the successful Eastern Europe programmes would not be possible without the personal input and sustaining action of Milan Zjalic. Milan, too, may be ready for a quieter time once BABROC is finished but, like me, he might also be available on an ad hoc basis. The accounting system has been fully streamlined with maximum traceability; Elena has been doing an excellent job with the support of Milano Accountants and Maurice Bichard.
In recent years we have greatly modernized the structures of EAAP. Our Council is younger and more active. We have brought the Commission Presidents together in a Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) which has regular joint meetings with Council and has real influence on the direction and speed of change. These Presidents are themselves younger scientists and not simply figureheads. To mention a few specific programs for 2001 and 2002: the Phare financed BABROC and the EU accompanying measures projects; the BSE Working Group; the changes in both the Eastern Countries and the Mediterranean Contact Groups, the development of the Round-Table on policy matters and the very active scientific sessions of the annual meeting. Also the Livestock Farming Systems joint projects with FAO; the major growth in ICAR activities; and the revival of RBI; the recent WAAP growing activities; involvement with FAO's State of the World of Animal Genetic Resources and the editorial work to prepare AGRI (FAO) as ready-to-print.
An upgraded publication policy, both through Elsevier (Livestock Production Science and the EAAP News Letter) and Wageningen Academic Publications (Scientific Series and Abstracts, plus the newly created Technical Series). There are many that help sustain this delicate and time consuming activity but I would like in particular to thank John Hodges, Ken Plaxton and Mike Jacobs. There is also full editing and production support to the development of the ICAR Technical Series and the ICAR News Letter - both major successes - not to mention the BABROC project Newsletter of which three numbers were published in 2001.
In the past couple of years, we have learned how to work in the EU through a changing and challenging social and agro-political environment. Through RESGEN, BABROC and now hopefully EFABIS we have become interacting partners of the EU Commission, involving the professional livestock sector and not only science and technology. In the beginning we were regarded with some suspicion as we were neither "a commercial concern" nor an "industrial organization" but things have changed - maybe because of our pugnacity. Our traditional links with FAO have, on the other hand, been growing in a climate of confidence and full understanding; one can refer as examples to the State of the World and other Animal Genetic Resources. actions, the LFS and After-BSE Working Group. The relationship - on equal footing - with many of the relevant INGOs, CIHEAM and OIE to mention the most prominent ones, has been successfully further developing as well as our interaction with many INGOs. All this puts further demands on the secretariat's time and action.
We trust the direction is now given and that the train is on track. That was, I think, what those who convinced me to come back to EAAP had hoped for. But while we in the Secretariat did what we felt had to be done to find the extra funds for 2001, 2002 and even for 2003, those tasks are in no way - in the long run - the responsibility of the Secretariat. Rather that task falls to the SAC and the Council. In due course the development of a Foundation seems to be a necessary additional channel for fund-raising. If a permanent solution is not found by 2003 I am afraid that the positive curve of growth in EAAP activities will turn to a negative direction. If EAAP were to follow a less ambitious line of action than the one taken these past three or four years, I honestly do not see the reason for keeping the Association going. With due respect, times have changed since the days of my predecessors and my own first term of office. I doubt strongly that our actual and future membership expects from us to have the "language" of 10/15 years ago and hold meetings amongst ourselves in cozy spots and friendly environments, taking the minimum of risks
May I now conclude by a short reference to this year's finances through the eye of the monitoring management? I hope you will take, in the years to come, collegially and individually the action to assure direct and/or indirect funding sources to sustain growth. This cannot be left to the permanent Rome Secretariat, not even with the full support of the President, the two Vice-Presidents and the Auditors. Excuse my frankness but at my level I can afford, even more than in the past, to call a spade a spade!
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express myself in these ways during my last year of office as EAAP's Executive Officer....Mr. President and friends "votre serviteur désire vraiment tirer sa révérence".
Jean Boyazoglu
Executive Vice-President, EAAP
Rome, 6 April 2002.
Next: New Secretary-General of EAAP