Annual Report 2006/07 - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

An introduction to ZILWith these approvals, the North-South Centre obtained asolid financial and administrative basis for shaping its futurelegal and organisational structure.In 2007, representatives of the ZIL Board and the NIDECOSteering Committee formed a working group to design thefuture programme structure, the legal framework and theinternal organisation. They were assisted by BrigitteSchiesser of the ETH Zurich Legal Service and Hans Vettigeras an external consultant on change management. The proposalof this working group was presented to the governingbodies of ZIL and NIDECO. After intensive discussions, bothgroups agreed to become a Competence Centre of the ETHZurich (as in the case of the former NIDECO) with statutesreflecting as much as possible the spirit of an association (asin the case of the former ZIL). The future programme structurewill be based on the five programmeareas suggested in thebusiness plan, of which the threelatter areas will be combined intoone activity axis, i.e. it will becomposed of the three axes“Research Collaboration”, “CapacityDevelopment”, and “Networkingand Communication”.Key speakers at the ZIL 2006Annual Conference “Trees for This programme structure wouldpoverty alleviation”, DennisGarrity and Angela Cropper allow the transferral of formerprojects and lines of activities ofZIL and NIDECO to the newCentre by re-grouping them in anintegrated manner.One pre-condition of the legaltransformation of ZIL into thenew North-South Centre was theformal closure of the associationZIL, which took place during itslast General Assembly on June 26, 2007, three days inadvance of the Constituting Assembly of the North-SouthCentre on June 29, 2007.The Constituting Assembly of the North-South Centreapproved the Draft Statutes for final confirmation by the ETHSchool Board. More than 60 ETH professors and scientistshave signed the membership form, which includes the commitmentto pay an annual membership fee. This is a very solidexpression of support to the new Centre. About half of thefounding members are former ZIL members, thereby assuringcontinuity of the ZIL commitment and spirit.The Constituting Assembly elected the President of theNIDECO Steering Committee, Wolfgang Kinzelbach(Department of Civil, Environmental and GeomaticEngineering, D-BAUG), as President of the North-SouthCentre. Three members of the ZIL Board – among themMichael Kreuzer as new Vice-President – and four former ZILmembers will serve on the Steering Committee of the newCentre, thereby assuring the continuity of its governing body.Due to his retirement in September 2007, the ZIL PresidentFelix Escher terminated his service to ZIL with the foundationof the North-South Centre. ZIL owes him sincere thanks forhis dedication and leadership and especially for his contributionto the merger of ZIL and NIDECO, which was instrumentalto a smooth integration of the two units.Networking and communicationPublic relationsOn June 9, 2006, ZIL organised its Annual Conference on thetopic “Trees for poverty alleviation”. Key speakers wereDennis Garrity, the Director General of the World AgroforestryCentre (ICRAF), and Angela Cropper, the Chair of theBoard of Trustees of the Centre for International ForestryResearch (CIFOR). The choice of the conference theme coincidedvery well with the programme development of ZIL.Although livestock systems research remains the overalltheme within this programme and complemented by theindependent projects, the ZIL programme has shiftedtowards agroforestry research and the role of trees in theirproductive and ecosystem functions. In order to give creditto this important topic, this report includes a special chapteron “Trees for poverty alleviation” by Dennis Garrity andcolleagues from ICRAF (p. 14).10