The 2018 IFLA World Council meeting was held on 16 and 17 July in Singapore, attended by delegates from each of the five IFLA regions. They were long days, but some great decisions were made which are very positive for the profession in our Asia-Pacific region as well as globally.

The key matter approved by the World Council was a constitution for the APR. This will allow the region, amongst other things, to have a greater degree of financial autonomy while still strongly supporting IFLA at a global level. It is likely that dues will be collected on a regional basis next year, with a proportion passed to IFLA for its global work, making it much easier for the region to allocate priority to initiatives which will directly benefit our own national organisations. The method of calculating dues was also modified, resulting in a small reduction for NZ as part of a more equitable system to fund IFLA and regional activities. Stage two of this new method is to progressively apply a World Bank relativity index, so that a Swiss and a Sri Lankan landscape architect both need to work for the same length of time to earn their dues contribution.

Plan IFLA was introduced, outlining priorities for the next three years and guiding the development of the global profession within a simpler and streamlined budget.

The 2019 World Congress was confirmed for Oslo from 16-20 September, with the Philippines confirmed as the hosts for the 2019 Regional Congress from 7-10 November in Cebu. Malaysia will host both the world and regional events towards the end of August 2020, with Sweden holding off a strong challenge from Israel to host the world event in 2021. (The attraction of the Swedish bid was that they plan to co-host the event with Nairobi, bringing the African region to the fore for the first time.)

One of the most poetic congress titles I have seen for some time was presented by Japan for the 2021 regional event in Tokyo. Their theme was “Landscape in Praise of Shadows”, being ten years on from the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Tohuku.

In other matters, Damian Tang, the IFLA APR president, announced a new partnership with an organisation which will sponsor an annual meeting of regional presidents. This roundtable meeting will enable real progress to be made in identifying regional priorities, a great opportunity for the profession’s leaders in our region to share ideas and possibilities for the advancement of the profession. Brad should expect an invitation soon to meet with other presidents in September!

Work undertaken in the IFLA APR on developing a regional accreditation system for programmes where a national system is not yet in place was selected to be part of a new global education framework. This is to be a two-tier approach, with recognition based on the European model of curriculum content first, followed by the APR system of full accreditation based on the process currently undertaken by the NZILA. I’ll be part of the working group to make that happen.

As well as the World Council meeting, delegates were treated to an impressive line-up of international speakers during the associated congress, including a presentation from NZ’s Rachel de Lambert. Her session was well attended, and then all attention was back on Rachel during the AAPME awards ceremony that evening, where she collected an Outstanding award for Boffa’s work on the Rangiriri Paa rehabilitation project.