Dear all

Background to ICM council meeting Durban South Africa June 2011

Margaret Carroll and Sally Millar are representing the Midwives Section of the INMO at the ICM council meeting in Durban.  Although this is an intense four days of hard work we are summarising the main issues here and attaching the most important documents for your information and interest.  

The venue for this ICM council meeting is idyllic.  The Indian Ocean pounds on beach and white waves curl and foam.  It is pleasantly warm – it’s Winter here but the serious business is all inside.

This is a very interesting council meeting.  A phenomenal amount of work has taken place in the last three years.  ICM now has 109 associations in 97 countries representing 250,000 midwives worldwide.  Since the last council and congress 20 new associations have joined.  There are 120 delegates, 12 board and executive members present at council.

English is the main language of council but there is simultaneous translation into Spanish and French and vice versa when a Spanish or French speaking delegate speaks.   It is impressive how well it all works and the technical side of the council is fantastic.  Three screens show powerpoint presentations and documents in three languages concurrently.  

In the last three years ICM has put itself on the world political and health agenda more than ever and has forged new partnerships and alliances.  Most notable partnerships being WHO, FIGO, ICN, PMNCH.  What I found particularly interesting was that at a recent meeting with WHO it was agreed that WHO would endorse and support three very important documents that have been attached for your information.


Three Very Important Documents
Three seminal pieces of work (attached) were presented to Council that were developed during this Triennium and were agreed in Glasgow as part of the strategic plan for the next Triennium. These are:

1.	ICM Essential Competencies for Basic Midwifery Practice
2.	ICM Global Standards for Midwifery Education
3.	ICM Global Standards for Midwifery Regulation

 These were adopted by Council by large majorities. The work for midwives and midwife associations in the next Triennium will be to ensure that these are examined closely in the context of the situation in that country in order to bring standards in line with the ICM standards. 


Definition of the Midwife

A revision to the ICM’s definition of the midwife was adopted yesterday 15th June 2011 to include reference to the ICM Essential Competencies for Basic Midwifery Practice and the ICM Global Standards for Midwifery Education. There was some concern that this might be a little premature given that the both documents were adopted by the Board of ICM this year.

Midwifery Association Capacity Assessment Tool (MACAT)
An important function of ICM is to strengthen midwifery associations. On Thursday, the Midwifery Association Capacity Assessment Tool (MACAT) was adopted by Council (100% agreement!!) to facilitate midwifery associations asses the strengths and areas for development in their association (available on ICM website).

Sally and Margaret