'NORTH-SOUTH' RELATIONS AND IFLA

Dr G E Gorman, Library Link Convenor

At the recent IFLA Conference in Bangkok there occurred in my view a strangely retrograde action - namely, an attempt to disband the Regional Division, which includes Sections for Africa, Asia and Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean. Warren Horton from Australia, who chaired the Working Party, spoke at length on the rationale for this proposed action (Recommendation 12), using the argument that librarians in the developing regions were all part of an increasingly integrated international community of information professionals, and that without regional sections we would be more closely integrated into the same happy band, etc.

Shortly after Mr Horton�s address we proceeded to the election of IFLA Executive Board members in which neither the eminently qualified candidate from China nor the Thai candidate were elected. (As an aside, it must be said that Thailand hosted a splendid Conference.) Whilst I am confident that the elected Western/Northern Hemisphere candidates are highly qualified and will make a sound contribution to ILFA during their tenure, it is most instructive that neither Asian representative was elected, so that there will be, I believe, no one from this region to represent us on the Executive Board.

All one happy band, are we? Members of an increasingly integrated international community? The election results suggest otherwise.

Anyone familiar with the working conditions of librarians in the developing world, with the paltry and sometimes non-existent funding for their libraries, with the often outdated collections, with the lack of adequate IT and telecommunications infrastructures, would recoil at the assumption that we are all equal partners in the international information profession. I have spent much of my career involved with libraries and information services in Africa and Asia, and I know very well from first-hand experience that many countries rely very considerably on more developed countries for professional expertise, for training, for financial support, for technology. Does this sort of reliance encourage a feeling of professional equality, or does it perpetuate a diffidence that so often impedes the productive exchange of ideas between North and South? As a colleague in Hanoi said to me immediately after IFLA Bangkok, �we [Vietnamese librarians] know very well how to manage our own affairs, but when we request assistance from many Western countries we are made to feel inferior.�

It is important that professionals from developing countries have an opportunity to meet as equals, to discuss with colleagues from nearby countries common issues, to learn from more advanced countries in their region about local solutions to common problems. Britain is not Thailand, Germany is not Cambodia; but Thailand and Cambodia can work together, unimpeded by British or German interference, to begin developing locally appropriate solutions to common problems. This is one of the great advantages of regional groups in any professional body, and one hopes that IFLA will continue to recognise this until such time, in a long distant future one suspects, as there is genuine parity between developed and developing countries.

Perhaps a more productive approach, and one advocated by the current Chair of the Regional Standing Committee for Asia and Oceania, Amelia McKenzie, might be (in her words) �to turn the equation around and talk about integrating the IFLA mainstream into the work of the developing countries�. Many Western members of IFLA would agree with this view, including several of my former colleagues in Australia and current colleagues in New Zealand. The Regional Division needs to make a conscious effort to attract these people to its Sections and to involve them in its work, thereby encouraging greater cooperation among equals.

It is important, as well, that the Regional Division continues to be represented by its Chair on the Professional Board - this ensures a formal channel for expressing the concerns and needs of the developing regions at the decision-making level within IFLA. It may well be that this representation has not always been as effective as one would wish, and this is something the Regional Division might wish to address, but at least there is always a place at the table for the developing countries, which is certainly not the case for other elected positions when so much block voting occurs by developed country delegates.

A further point, and one that IFLA ought to address in future deliberations of this sort, is that the wider membership was not consulted during the Working Party's information-gathering process. This is an unfortunate oversight in an organisation which claims that all of us have a voice and fair representation.

There was, as might be expected, strong criticism from many delegates of the Working Party's recommendation as described by Warren Horton in his address, and this particular proposition - to disband the Regional Division - was roundly criticised and ultimately defeated by the assembly. Nevertheless, the tone and content of that address and the fact that all interested parties in the regions were not consulted rankles, and I believe this is an issue that those involved in IFLA will want to see addressed in future meetings. If we are all part of the same body, if we all do have a voice, if our views are all equal, than this must be seen to be so in both word and action.

Dr G E Gorman
Victoria University of Wellington

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