PRESS
WAF 2009 annual meeting
“Development assistance, animal protection and the corporate community”, theme of the 2009 World Animal Forum annual meeting
Bridge building, communication and collaboration essential to enhancing the role of animal protection as a contributor to solving global problems.
Turin, Italy, 11th May 2009
For the fourth consecutive year, the World Animal Forum (WAF) held its annual meeting in northern Italy, from 6th to the 9th of May.
The Annual Meeting of the WAF provides the backdrop to discuss strategic animal protection issues while engaging with decision makers in frank, open and constructive discussions in a private setting. It is a unique forum where thought leaders from diverse backgrounds have the opportunity to share perspectives, engage in a process of mutual learning and relationship building, in relatively underexplored areas of common concern.
As the World Animal Forum actively seeks to build bridges with other societal groups, the focus moved this year to exploring the links and interconnections with the development assistance movement, looking into how development assistance and animal protection relate to each other and how their goals can be reconciled to create further social change. Many areas of common concern and overlap in the work of development and animal protection organisations were identified, and there was a strong consensus on the need for further research and information exchange to raise awareness and improve synergies between organisations.
Furthermore, participants also investigated the linkages between the corporate community and animal protection movement, and how closer interaction and win-win partnerships can be developed between corporates and NGOs, to further their cause. The group looked into the evolution of corporate social responsibility, with the current and future position of animal protection in such policies, the adoption of new business paradigms such as conscious capitalism, and the respective roles of corporates and governments or international bodies in developing multi-stakeholder approaches, in order to maximise social change.
The meeting benefited from the active participation of key opinion leaders from the Development, Corporate and Governmental worlds. They included Marcelo de Andrade (Pro Natura International), Tim Leyland (DFID), Anni McLeod (FAO), Ahmed Mohamed (Millenium Villages), Kimanthi Mutua (K-Rep Bank), Christie Peacock (FARM Africa). Several representatives from international corporations, including John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods Market), Sushanta Sen (Confederation of Indian Industry), from the scientific community (Danier Krewski, Ottawa University) and from regulating bodies such as the European Commission (Paola Testori, Andrea Gavinelli) and the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health), also contributed to making the 2009 annual meeting a great thinking space and a source of future areas of collaboration.
About the World Animal Forum:
The World Animal Forum (WAF) was created in 2006 as a private gathering uniting like-minded leaders in the animal protection movement with selected guests. As an independent forum, it acts as a catalyst for new thoughts, and seeks linkages between the animal protection movements and other societal groups. Furthermore, the Forum provides an unique opportunity to share ideas and thoughts and to foster discussions on the problems faced by animal protection globally. WAF members include the CEOs of the Brooke, CIWF, HSUS, HSI, IFAW, Maddie’s Fund, Partnership for Animals, the RSPCA and WSPA.
The Brooke: www.thebrooke.org
Compassion In World Farming: www.ciwf.org
The Humane Society of the US: www.hsus.org
Humane Society International: www.hsihsus.org
International Fund for Animal Welfare: www.ifaw.org
Maddie’s Fund: www.maddiesfund.org
Partnership for Animals: www.partnershipforanimals.org
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal: www.rspca.org.uk
World Society for the Protection of Animals: www.wspa-international.org
For more information:
www.worldanimalforum.org, info@worldanimalforum.org or telephone + 33 6 61 12 85 66
WAF 2009 annual meeting> (pdf format)