IWGIA members vote to keep organisation’s foundational name

Written on 17 June 2019. Posted in News

After a long consultation process, IWGIA members voted on not adopting a new call name, thus keeping the original acronym of International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.

“As a membership organisation we are pleased that our dedicated members have engaged so actively in this important discussion. It shows that our work and our foundation in how IWGIA was created 51 years ago is a strong symbol in the fight for indigenous peoples’ rights and continues to mean a lot to a lot of people,” Knud Vilby, IWGIA Chairman of the Board, said. “We are thankful to our members who contributed their valuable input into this important debate and respect their decision, putting an end to the discussion.”

Option for new call name voted down

Internal discussions began a few years ago on whether IWGIA should consider changing its organisational name or crafting an alternate name to make it more clearly understandable when speaking about the organisation and its work to new audiences.

After much debate and various options, IWGIA’s Board proposed to members to add a new call name for IWGIA, while maintaining the organisation’s long-standing reputation by keeping its logo with the original acronym, or to make no change. Members voted down the option to add the call name of Global Indigenous Affairs to IWGIA’s statutes.

IWGIA will continue its important work supporting indigenous peoples as the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs as we have done since 1968.

Tags: IWGIA