1. EWB’s direction in more detail – June 1st 2009
In two previous s, we identified why EWB thinks that stronger connections between Canada and Africa are important, and why EWB needs to move toward a more distributed organisation.
This documents articulates EWB’s new direction in more detail by proposing four new proposed outcome areas and four foundational areas.
These outcome areas were driven by asking two questions:
What is needed for positive change?
What assets does EWB have (or could have in the coming 1-2 years)?
The foundational areas were identified by asking:
What is critical for EWB to continue to be able to better serve Dorothy in the future?
The goal is that with more concrete outcomes, and more space about how they can be achieved, new and interesting initiatives will emerge from members across Canada.
They have been shared with the presidents and the Overseas volunteers, who have provided feedback and are excited. But they are still in proposal form. We need your help to bring them further! See the next steps slide at the end. And remember:
This is your EWB! Where do you want it go?

2. Supporting a broader more positive engagement with Africa
Text of Hilary Clinton’s commencement speech at NYU, May 2009, which reflects very well EWB’s new direction: “Your generation will be up against those challenges: climate change and hunger, extreme poverty, new diseases ... But these challenges can no longer be seen just as government-to-government. There is a time and an opportunity, and with the new technologies available, for us to be citizen diplomats, citizen activists, to solve problems one by one, and will then aggregate to the solutions we seek. We need to build new partnerships from the bottom up. But this requires smart people who have opened themselves up to this increasingly complex and interconnected world. My message to you today is this: Be the special envoys of your ideals; use the communication tools at your disposal to advance the interests of humanity everywhere; be citizen ambassadors using your personal and professional lives to forge global partnerships, build on a common commitment to solving our planet’s common problems. You can help lay the groundwork for the kind of global cooperation that is essential if we wish, in our time, to end hunger and defeat disease, to combat climate change, and to give every child the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential.”

3. EWB’s proposed outcome areas and foundational pillars
3. Supporting Rural African Capacity
4. Advocating for improved Canadian policies toward Africa
1. Engaging Canadians to Contribute and Connect to Africa
2. Helping the engineering profession serve global society
EWB’s four outcome areas
Social Change Leaders
At the heart of EWB is fostering Social Change leaders
Community – Chapter – on-line
Culture
Capital contributions (funding)
Controls (finance/admin)
The four foundations upon which our outcome areas stand

4. The battle against extreme poverty is a marathon, not a sprint.
Social change leaders
The battle against extreme poverty is a marathon, not a sprint.
We know that our short term impact will be through our four outcome areas, however in the long term a new generation of thoughtful, passionate, talented and committed social change leaders is necessary for a better world.
Supporting capacity for a prosperous rural Africa
Improving Canada’s policies toward Africa
Engaging Canadians to contribute about and connect to Africa
Helping the engineering profession better serve society
Social Change Leaders
And so central to “how” EWB works is ensuring that our programs foster and support this new generation of social change leaders who will continue to drive positive change for many years. We’ll continue to focus on delivering on impact, but we’ll do so in ways that invest in the social change leaders the world needs
Community – Chapter – on-line
Culture
Capital contributions (funding)
Slide number

5. EWB’s four outcome areas
What?
Improved capacity and space for African institutions to improve agriculture, water and sanitation and basic infrastructure
Why?
It’s needed, and EWB has been working in these areas for five+ years and has a strong track record of success
How?
Organisational Capacity Support
Donor and sector influence through communicating implementation realities
What?
The Canadian governments policies and actions have a big influence on Africa – good and bad – and are sadly underwhelming
Why?
EWB is unique with strong and sophisticated grassroots advocates, financial independence, and a good policy reputation/connections
How?
Grassroots advocacy
Field-informed policy recommendations
Supporting rural African Capacity
Advocating for improved Canadian policies toward Africa
Engaging Canadians to contribute and connect to Africa
Helping the engineering profession serve global society
What?
An engineering profession that is serving our global society
Why?
We have a widespread membership passionate and able to bring a missing global justice perspective within our profession
How?
Corporate global citizenship
Educating global engineers
Global engineering mindset
What?
Person to person connections between Canadians and Africans will improve our global community.
Why?
EWB’s network excels at global citizenship engagement and our understanding of technology/ business allows us to help to build connections
How?
Generate caring about Africa
Create opportunities for Canadians to connect and contribute to Africa.

6. Engaging Canadians to contribute and connect to Africa
We envision supporting a broad movement of people who see Africa in a positive light; are able to take daily actions to support Africa; and have a variety of ways to interact with Africa and through these connections learn more about Africa and the interconnectedness of our global world
EWB will work to create positive connections between Canadians and Africans. This will involve simultaneous:
Generating awareness among the public
Working with companies or organisations to offer more opportunities for consumers/ constituents to connect to Africa
Sample major initiatives:
2% Fair Trade – have 2% of Canada’s retail sales be of fair trade products
Fully Fair Trade Universities
Fair Trade Offerings – work with corporations to increase their fair trade offerings
General Outreach
Global Youth
Reach youth to encourage them to think about how science and technology and global justice can be linked
(or other similar site)
Identification of actions that Individuals can take to be better global citizens
And others that members will identify!
Supporting capacity for a prosperous rural Africa
Improving Canada’s policies toward Africa
Engaging Canadians to contribute and connect to Africa
Helping the engineering profession better serve society
Slide number

7. Improving Canada’s policies toward Africa
EWB’s does advocacy work because:
There are few groups in Canada with the independence from CIDA to be able to provide constructive feedback;
EWB has a sophisticated grassroots membership that is able to advocate on complex issues;
EWB is connected through our work in Africa to field realities that policy makers and donors need to know to be able to improve their services.
EWB has a good reputation with important development thinkers and decision makers in Ottawa and beyond;
We have had a number of successes in the recent past, including strong grassroots advocacy on Bill C-293 (The Development Accountability Assistance Act) and untying aid (four years of work; new zero-tied-aid policy adopted in September 2008) and selected policy suggestions at different levels.
We would like to build on this to become the strongest grassroots development advocacy group in Canada, meaning:
We would have deepest network of sophisticated development advocates across Canada with a breadth of influence techniques including MP connections, local media op-eds/letters, petition mobilisation, minister letter writing, and other techniques.
We would be a leading contributor of ideas in Canada on three issues: Africa; Agriculture, and Aid (CIDA’s) effectiveness at the micro level.
Africa is being forgotten-- need to keep government’s commitments (current aid shift);
Agriculture and economic development should be front and centre of Canada’s support for Africa, and must go beyond Aid;
Aid/CIDA’s effectiveness at the micro (project) level needs to be increased and that will happen through focusing on implementation, and likely borrowing practices from the private sector;
We would be among the most prominent of CIDA’s watchdogs among NGOs and highlight when CIDA or the government makes decisions that are against the best interests of the billion people around the world who have the least voice.
Supporting capacity for a prosperous rural Africa
Improving Canada’s policies toward Africa
Engaging Canadians to contribute about and connect to Africa
Helping the engineering profession better serve society
Slide number

8. Supporting capacity in rural Africa
EWB’s focus is on the practical realities of change at the field level – how water pumps are used, how farmers make decisions, or how projects are implemented by field staff.
Our work focuses on working with partner organisations to help them build capacity in particular areas, such as improved management systems, ability to undertake new projects, improve their staff training, or build an improved monitoring and evaluation system.
Our volunteers and their co-workers on the front lines represent a network of smart, independent people who are placed at multiple levels in the development sector. This allows us to get a unique “bottom up” view of development that focuses on implementation realities.
We are also sharing our knowledge of implementation realities with other organisations and donors to help them think differently about their work.
The diagram at the right indicates the four areas touched by EWB’s programs
Supporting capacity for a prosperous rural Africa
Improving Canada’s policies toward Africa
Engaging Canadians to contribute about and connect to Africa
Helping the engineering profession better serve society

9. Helping the Engineering Profession better serve Society
Our goal is to help bring about an engineering profession that that is better aware of its potential for positive impact on the world and is better equipped to bring about that change
We see 4 major outcomes in this area
Engineers have the foundational capabilities to effect positive social change
The profession has an internal desire for improvement and feels a strong connection to the global society & Dorothy.
There is an enhanced public perception of the engineering profession as a strong contributor to global development.
Engineers have an opportunity for Global Impact as an individual, through their organization or as a profession.
We are well positioned to bring about this change since:
We have strong connections with Industry
We have strong connections with Engineering Faculties
We have strong connection with engineering professional associations
We have a large grassroots network of student and professional engineer
We have a reputation of doing ‘good’ work.
We have a broad breadth of programs
We engage people through their life as an Engineer
Ex. High school, University, Professional
Supporting capacity for a prosperous rural Africa
Improving Canada’s policies toward Africa
Engaging Canadians to contribute about and connect to Africa
Helping the engineering profession better serve society
Slide number

10. Four Foundational Pillars
Canadians committed to opportunity for Africans
Supporting capacity for a prosperous rural Africa
Improving Canada’s policies toward Africa
Engaging Canadians to contribute about and connect to Africa
Helping the engineering profession better serve society
Strong community
Strong university chapters whose strength and functioning are facilitated
strong city chapters bringing together interested members.
online community allowing people to track actions and contributions
online community: joint work and stronger virtual community
Strong culture
We need an articulation of our common values
Emphasis on learning about development issues - and associated programs
Emphasis on leadership - and associated programs
Strong Capital
fundraising needs to be core to what we do,
Success with gift of opportunity suggests opportunity for fundraising to be distributed – initiatives have more responsibility for fundraising.
better recognition of those who are committed to fundraising!
Strong Controls
we need to maintain our permission to operate
EWB must be a well managed and efficient organization
We need to consistently manage and maintain financial health
Power of People
Community – Chapter – on-line
Culture
Capital contributions (funding)
Controls (finance/admin)
Slide number

11. What’s new, what isn’t?
We’ve done work in all four areas, however we were under-invested in most.
Our professional members have been seeking to improve the engineering profession’s global contributions; we’ll be growing our programs in that area
We’ll be expanding our programs on the “connect” side of the contribute and connect, as well as creating more space for innovation on the “how” to increase contributions
We’ve been slowly adding capacity to our Canadian Advocacy programs; this formally recognises it as its own outcome area.
There is space for more innovation based on what members closest to the action see. A good rule of thumb is perhaps the 80/20 rule. We need to ensure that there is the space for innovations to test new ways or new areas; however, we know that a lot of impact occurs with the repetition and gradual improvement of what works. We imagine that we’ll be focused roughly 20% on innovation, and 80% on ensuring the delivery and continuous improvement of what we know works.
Slide number

12. Some Implications
We would anticipate a number of changes to an online community or set of tools to help this process. This means a different myewb.ca. A few functions:
Opportunities for members/public to identify actions and track their contributions as a global citizen;
Outcome area websites allowing greater sharing of material; goal setting, tracking, celebrating success, and conversations.
Strong ability for individuals to come together to form teams to work on particular issues
More opportunities for leaders to play a more sophisticated role within programs and in conjunction with program leads at the national office
More space for members to innovate on the “how” within programs.
Specific creation of the equivalent to an overseas placement but in Canada
A deeper sense of outcome area integration and program integration, rather than just chapter integration
Eg. So that, for example, people involved in youth engagement would have a deeper connection across the country, while still being connected to their chapter.
This would enable better bottom-up target setting across programs
Slide number

13. Next steps
This is a preliminary proposal – but to take it further, we need your help!
Between June 1st and July 12th is visioning time. Over the course of this period, we’ll be:
Seeking input from members on whether these outcome areas reflect our common vision for EWB’s work
This will happen through retreats, through online discussions, through phone calls, and through s.
Working with those interested members to define outcomes in more detail at the program level, and to define strategic priorities -2-3 year goals for each outcome area (there are a number of myewb posts asking for volunteers in particular areas.
We hope that you are interested in getting involve in some way!
In late June, we’ll launch the on-line tools and propose more formal communication processes.
Slide number