|
International Alliance of Patients' Organizations (IAPO)
Governing Board Meeting
The IAPO Governing Board recently convened for a very productive
two day meeting to finalise IAPO's plans for 2004. They met at
The Chandlery in Westminster, London, on the 7th and 8th of February.
Following the success of the first year of IAPO's three year Capacity
Building Initiative, everyone was ready to work on how IAPO can
build its capacity to deliver benefits and services to members
over the next two years of the initiative. For more information
and to see the Board hard at work please click
here...
New Policy & External Affairs Director appointed!
Everyone at IAPO is delighted to announce that we have successfully
appointed someone to take on a completely new full-time role at
our London office: Policy & External Affairs Director. Being
able to expand our team is a huge achievement for IAPO, as the
organization has only ever had one member of staff at a time for
the last four years. This step forward really demonstrates that
IAPO is much stronger and more sustainable than ever before. The
Policy & External Affairs staff member will be primarily responsible
for devising a credible and cost-effective way to formulate IAPO
policy on key healthcare issues. The primary reason for these
policies is to represent IAPO's member patients' organizations
and provide a route for them to have input into global healthcare
policy. We will introduce our new staff member to you in the March
newsletter, but for more details about the Policy & External
Affairs role, please click
here...
Networking to Membership
Note that the final legal proceedings for re-registration
as a membership organization have been underway during January
and February. We are sure everyone, especially other patients'
organizations, appreciates that this can be a complicated and
time-consuming process! We will of course keep you informed about
this. We are really looking forward to being able to invite those
patients' organizations around the world who have not yet been
Networkers to become members. Members will have control of the
global patients' alliance through their voting rights and Annual
Meetings. We anticipate that everything will be finalised in March
and we will be able to formally convert all Networkers to Members
during March and April, and recruit new members from this time.
2004 Plan of Activities
2004 is the second year of IAPO's three year Capacity Building
Initiative. At this time, IAPO is now in a position to really
start to work towards its mission, and it is our mission statement
that has helped focus on three specific priority areas for 2004:
- Membership, including the successful transition from Networking
to Membership and the development of a range of benefits and
services for IAPO members.
- Policy formulation, focusing on developing a method to create
credible policies that represent the views of member patients'
organizations.
- Building cross-sector alliances, particularly with WHO and
other key global stakeholders.
To find out more about IAPO's plans for this year, please click
here.
Plant-made pharmaceuticals White Paper
Many organizations with considerable review expertise have
expressed an interest in reviewing the first draft of our White
Paper on plant-made pharmaceuticals. The aim of the paper is to
inform member and non-member patients' organizations around the
world about this confusing and controversial topic. If you are
one of these, you can expect to receive the first draft early
next week (around 1st-2nd March).
|
