Presented to IHEU’s General Assembly on 20 April 2006

IHEU’s Mission

It is usual on these occasions for the President to report on the past year’s activities, but since this is my last General Assembly as President, I thought I should perhaps review what IHEU has achieved during my watch, over the past three years.

IHEU has a three-fold mission:

• To represent the Humanist community internationally, and at institutions such as the United Nations.
• To organise thematic and regional conferences, and the triennial World Humanist Congress
• To help in the growth and development of Humanism and Humanist organisations around the world.

At the International Institutions

At the United Nations in New York we have a strong team, and last year one of our representatives, Matt Cherry, was elected president of the NGO group on freedom of religion and belief – the first non-religious person to hold the post. In Geneva, we have been well represented by a team of five at the Human Rights Commission (now replaced by the new Human Rights Council) and have been very active both in plenary sessions and in organising parallel conferences. At the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, after over 20 years of sterling service, Marius Dees de Sterio handed over the leadership of our team to Sylvia Geise, who has since been elected vice-president of the Council of Europe NGO liaison committee.

In November 2003, we hosted an important women’s conference in London, and in 2004 we held the first GA meeting ever in Africa, in Kampala, Uganda, and launched the African Humanist Alliance. We also co- hosted two conferences at the Palais des Nations in Geneva in 2004 and 2005, in parallel with the annual meetings of the Human Rights Commission. And finally, in 2005, we held the 16th World Humanist Congress in Paris – a remarkable event, hosted by our French member organisation, the Federation Nationale de la Libre Pensee.

As well as our own conferences, Babu Gogineni, I and other members of the Executive Committee participated in numerous conferences, seminars and debates, including the 5th World Atheist Conference held in Vijayawada, India in January 2005.

Our Bioethics Center

When you look at the key tasks that IHEU has set itself, they all share a common theme: to increase awareness of Humanism and Humanist values around the world, and to bring a human-centered approach to the social, political and economic debate. So one of our most important innovations over the past three years has been the opening of the IHEU- Appignani Center for Bioethics here in New York City. This coming weekend we will be hosting a major conference: “Is there a Global Bioethics?” which I know most of you here will be attending. It is a great tribute to Ana Lita, the Executive Director of the Center, that she has been able to bring together such an illustrious panel of speakers. It is also a great tribute to the vision of Lou Appignani and the Appignani Foundation that we have already been able to make an impact in this rapidly changing field.

Communications

Increasing awareness of Humanism and Humanist values is, above all, about communication. Our principal means of communication for many years has been International Humanist News. But when I joined the Executive Committee publication of IH News was, to be kind, somewhat sporadic. So one of the first steps we took was to appoint a professional editor, Latha Menon, to help us lick it into shape. Since then IH News has appeared regularly every quarter, with a wide range of articles from around the world, and with regular reports from our international delegations and from the youth organisation, IHEYO. For the past 18 months the editorship has been in the capable hands of Babu Gogineni. Although we are now in the age of the internet, not all of our member organisations, let alone individual members, have access to the internet. We decided that despite the very significant cost of producing a quarterly magazine, publication of IH News was worth the cost, and should continue. And I am delighted that thanks to our colleagues at the Libre Pensee Francaise, this month has seen the appearance of the first French language edition of Informations Humanistes Internationales.

Website

But we are indeed in the internet age. Our website, www.iheu.org, has undergone two important upgrades during the past two years. It is now very easy to use. It incorporates a Google search engine so any of the more than 2500 articles on the site can be easily located by title, author or content. The articles cover the past ten years of IHEU activity and, more importantly, the site is regularly updated. We are also now sending out a monthly e-news letter highlighting the events of the preceding month. The proof of the relevance of any web site is of course in its readership. I am therefore happy to report that growth in our readership has been little short of phenomenal. The number of visitors to the website has quadrupled over the past year and last month we recorded 134,000 visitors. Furthermore, each visitor is now accesses two or three times as many pages as a year ago. We are currently running at a rate of over 10 million page reads a year.

Giving Credit

I want to thank the Executive Committee for the support they have given me, IHEU, and the cause of international Humanism over the past three years. And there is one person in particular I want to thank – a man without whose efforts and contribution hardly any of our recent success would have been possible. He, and his organisation, the Institute for Humanist Studies, have provided funding to enable us to employ a full-time director of operations, Suresh Lalvani; they have funded the expenses and operating costs for both our New York office and for our international representatives at the UN; and have provided a professional web-hosting service not only for IHEU but for a huge number of other Humanist organisations. Their motto is “You can achieve anything if you don’t mind who gets the credit”. Well, it’s time Larry Jones got the credit he so richly deserves. Larry, thank you very much indeed for all you have done, and continue to do for IHEU and the cause of Humanism!

Growth and Development

I come now to the issue of growth and development which, for me, is one of our most important responsibilities within IHEU. I would encourage all of you to look beyond your own local problems however overwhelming they may seem at times. I can assure those of you who live in the western democracies that your problems pale into insignificance compared to the difficulties faced by our brothers and sister in the developing world. Some of you are already doing a great deal and to great effect. The $76,000 you so generously provided for the victims of the tsunami was a wonderful example. But to those organisations who have no current international activity, I would say this: Please seriously consider making a regular contribution to the development of Humanism in developing countries. When you have $10,000 in the bank you won’t miss $100. But $100 – or even $10 – can mean the difference between life and death to someone in Africa or in parts of Asia.

If you would like to help either as an individual or through your organisation, any member of the growth and development committee: me, Larry Jones, Levi Fragell or Babu Gogineni will be happy to help you find a project or organisation that matches your objectives.

Finally, a heart-felt thank you for the support you have given me over the past three years, and that I know you will continue to give to my successor in the years ahead.