Liberian peace activist and 2011 Nobel prize winner Leyman Gbowee brought the closing plenary of the London Bond International conference on development on Tuesday March 21 2017 to a close with two fitting anecdotes; a group of three black boys who provide new flip-flops to a white old man in New York and one of her foundation recipients who offers breakfast to a young 4 year old girl who had no breakfast before going to school.
“ I tell these two stories because they have really spoken to my heart”, Gbowee told the more than 600 delegates who attended the closing session. “We live in a time of segregation, homophobic attacks, xenophobic in places where we never imagined…” Her message was a culmination of two days of inspiring debates and presentations from a wide range of people and development charity sector workers from as far away as Nepal, South Africa, India and the United States of America. More than 1000 delegates and exhibitors showcased their products at the Queen Elizabeth II hall during a conference now dubbed “Europe’s biggest international development conference”. Bond the conference organiser is a UK membership body for organisations working in international development or supporting those that do through funding, research, training and other services.
Outside Conference Hall London
Opening the conference on Monday March 20 2917, UK International Development Secretary Priti Patel made a robust defence of the vital role UK £12 billion aid budget plays in elevating poverty around the world. She promised her department will work more with charities to achive it’s objectives. Other keynote speakers during the conference included Achim Martin from Oxford Martin School, Jan Egeland from Norwegian Refugee council, Jutta Steiner from Parity Technologies and Mats Karlsson from Swedish Institute of International Affairs.
Debate topics were far ranging including topics like “Advocating for civil society space, , “Beyond grants”, “Global lessons on philanthropy” to the never ending “How to make the most out of Brezit”.
Creative Connections gave an artistic representation of the proceedings
Glistering Charities Award Night
Citizen Outreach Coalition was represented in the conference by its Project Manager Francis Ngwa. According to him “…the highlight of the occasion was the Bonds’ award night that recognized the work of outstanding charities from around the world”. Delegates to the awards ceremony watched inspiring videos of the amazing work all shortlisted charities were doing on the field. There were awards in the following six categories; Transparency, Innovation, collaboration, Outstanding Individual, and Humanitarian awards.
Cross section of conference speakers
Award Winners
Campaign Award was given to Orbis Uk for their Vision for Zambia Campaign
Collaboration Award was given to Chance for Childhood for their Right2Change Project
Innovation Award was jointly won by CABI’s Plantwise Project & Send a Cow Taro Project
Transparency Award was given to Restless Development for their work in implementing accountability in their organization.
You can watch all inspiring award winners below
A world without the work of charities will be a much sadder disorganised world. Thank you, thank you and thank you again.
How does a charity or what we call here NGOs register to be part of the bond network?
Check the Bond website here