Organization of the Platform

The General Assembly, the steering committee and the coordination body work together to make the Platform operational.

The General Assembly is the Platform's supreme governing body which holds an ordinary annual general meeting and extraordinary meetings if required. The Dakar workshop in March 2008 is considered to be the first general assembly out of which the Platform was born. It was there that the Memorandum of Understanding was signed, enabling the identification of its principal orientations, the action plan and the steering committee framework. The next meeting of the General Assembly will be held in February 2010 in Addis Ababa just before the 9th meeting of the High-Level group on Education for All. At this General Assembly, members will evaluate what has been done and give new directions for the future, which will in all probability, be based on the monitoring of the commitments made during the deliberations of CONFINTEA VI. In addition, it will be used to finalise and share our advocacy work to influence the proceedings of the high-level meeting also being held in Addis from 23-25 February 2010.

The Steering Committee is composed of one representative from each member network. It determines the strategic orientation of the Organization and is responsible for ensuring that the Platform's activities are carried out as intended. It recruits the coordinator and other staff as necessary and provides them with clearly defined and time-bound directives. It is responsible for the evaluation of personnel and is accountable to the General Assembly. Members of the steering committee must meet at least twice a year and communicate regularly by teleconference both between themselves and with the coordinator.

The Coordinating body is the operational arm of the steering committee, lead by the coordinator, Diarra Mahamadou Cheick, who was recruited by the said committee. Lalla El Oumrany joined the team as assistant in January 2009. The Platform also hires experts on a part-time/contractual basis. The Platform is currently based in the offices of dvv International in Bamako, which provides it with technical and financial assistance for its development and to better implement the Platform's plan of action.