Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting April 13, 2004

22 June 2004

Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting
April 13, 2004
12:00pm – 3:00pm

Present:

Andrea Durbin
Marianne Ginsburg
Atila Roque
Francis Seymour
Manish Bapna (ex-officio)
Bruce Jenkins (minute taker)

1. Call to Order: Board Chair Jonathan Fox called the meeting to order at 12:15pm. Andrea Durbin was designated facilitator for this meeting. The meeting took place at 733 15th St, NW, Washington, DC 20005.

2. Welcome to new Board members: Atila Roque and Frances Seymour were officially welcomed to the organization’s Board of Directors.

3. Approval of Minutes: The Directors approved the minutes of the Board of Directors meeting of February 25, 2004.

4. Program Update: Manish Bapna provided an overview of BIC’s structure and program areas. BIC is organized primarily according to a geographic focus, with individual regional programs dedicated to Africa, Asia, Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America. BIC is also currently pursuing two country-specific projects: Burma and Afghanistan. In addition to regional programs, BIC operates a cross-cutting policy program, an information services program, and a finance and administration program. Manish provided the Directors with an update of key priorities in each program area, and posed several questions for the Board’s consideration, particularly in light of BIC’s strategic planning process. These questions included the following: (i) given BIC’s size, are we structured optimally to maximize effectiveness with limited resources?; (ii) how can BIC improve the selectivity of initiatives within each program area, given the demand-driven nature of BIC’s services as well as the ever expanding number of MDB-backed initiatives?; and (iii) are BIC’s priorities coherent across program areas?

The Directors thanked Manish for the overview and welcomed the questions for consideration. The Directors discussed a number of issues concerning BIC’s programs, including the following:

• developing a proactive media strategy consistent with BIC’s mandate;
• mapping and targeting BIC’s efforts to influential constituencies inside and outside the MDBs;
• redefining BIC’s Latin America program objectives and strategic approach given changes among CSOs and their priorities in the region;
• greater attention to MDB influence on development policy frameworks within countries; among other issues.

The Directors looked forward to reviewing these and other issues in strategic planning.

5. Strategic Planning: Manish briefed the Directors on the status of BIC’s strategic planning process. He outlined some key steps, including commissioning thought-pieces, conducting a survey, continuing the speaker series, and holding a retreat. The Directors welcomed the staff’s progress to date, but raised questions concerning the scope of the planning process, emphasizing that it will be important to balance comprehensiveness with organizational capacity and manageable time frames. The Board proposed that staff develop a set of outcome objectives that BIC would like to achieve over a 3-5 year period, and then modify the set of questions to be addressed in strategic planning based on those objectives. Manish agreed with this approach and will return with a ‘strawman’ of BIC’s objectives at the next Board meeting.

6. Financial Management: Manish reviewed the current financial position of the organization with the Board. The Directors noted progress in closing a projected deficit for the current fiscal year. The Directors noted that a decision to address any gap between projected income and expenses would need to be taken at the next (mid-year) Board meeting.

7. Next meeting: The next Board of Directors meeting was scheduled for June 21, 2004.

Adjournment: The chair adjourned the meeting at 3:00pm.