About ACGC

ACGC Mission and Objectives
ACGC By-Laws and Policies
ACGC Organizational Structure
ACGC History
Networks and Coalitions

ACGC Mission and Objectives

The Alberta Council for Global Cooperation (ACGC) is a coalition of voluntary sector organizations located in Alberta, working locally and globally to achieve sustainable human development.

We are committed to international cooperation that is people-centred, democratic, just, inclusive, and respectful of the environment and indigenous cultures. We work towards ending poverty and achieving a peaceful and healthy world, with dignity and full participation for all.

Members of the Council pursue these goals through supporting global citizenship programs and participatory projects with international partners.

The Council's goal is to support the work of its members through networking, leadership, information sharing, training and coordination, and represents their interests when dealing with government and others. The objectives of the Council are to promote and mobilize greater Albertan participation in assisting international development.

The objectives are to be achieved in the following ways:

1. to consistently reflect in all ACGC policies, activities and services, the principal philosophies embodied in the Council's Mission and Development Principles;
2. to facilitate effective member networking and capacity building both internationally and domestically;
3. to coordinate and support members' activities in an effective manner;
4. to provide leadership on issues of concern to members;
5. to provide members with relevant and effective services;
6. to be an effective advocate and representative to government agencies and the public for international development concerns on behalf of the membership and to keep member organizations informed as to important shifts in Canadian foreign policy.

ACGC Organizational Structure

ACGC is governed by an elected Board of Directors comprised of not less than seven and no more than thirteen persons, being Directors at large, and drawn from a representative mixture of smaller and larger member organizations and organizations of diverse interests.
The Board of ACGC is a working board, made up of volunteers committed to the goals of the Council. The activities of ACGC are planned, implemented and evaluated by standing sub-committees. Standing committees are composed of Board members and persons drawn from the larger membership as required.
An Executive Director works with the Board to carry out programming and the administration of the Council.

ACGC History

The Alberta Council for Global Cooperation has been in existence since 1997, but a lack of core funding limited the amount of activity the Council was able to undertake. In 1999, ACGC partnered with the Parkland Institute to bring world-renowned activist and scholar Dr. Vandana Shiva to Alberta for a lecture series on globalization.

In 1999 and 2000, ACGC published two newsletters annually for circulation to Albertan NGOs, both members and non-members. In 1999, and again in 2000, ACGC held a two-day workshop with its members in conjunction with its Annual General Meeting. Topics discussed during these workshops addressed the current concerns of the membership and the 1999 session included Canada's Secretary of State for Latin America and Africa, the Honourable David Kilgour, and the Deputy Director of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC), Ms. Esperanza Moreno as guest speakers. The AGM in 2000 featured Christine Hodge, Senior Programme Officer, of the Peacebuilding Unit, Multilateral Programs Branch of CIDA, and Mr. Frank O'Dea, Founder of Street Kids International and successful business entrepreneur.

ACGC received core funding from CIDA in both the 2000 and 2001 rounds of Provincial Council funding which allowed the Council to increase its activities dramatically. The Council was able to hire a half-time Executive Director and establish the infrastructure necessary to more effectively carry out its mandate. The past two funding cycles has seen a rise in the visibility of the council and a significant growth in organizational capacity and membership. The number of member groups has grown from eight to 25 this year, including a number of organizations from smaller communities in Alberta.

Communications with member groups, the wider NGO community, and the general public has increased significantly. Circulation of the newsletter, the ACGC Update, has been expanded to three issues annually and circulation numbers has more than doubled to 350. ACGC now maintains two email lists for more timely updates, one for NGOs and another for the general public. On a weekly basis, ACGC communicates directly with over 300 groups and individuals and an estimated 1500 through the forwarding of messages by organizations. The ACGC website has seen increasing levels of traffic each month since it went online, and now receives an average of over 30 hits daily, and over 2500 individuals have visited the site. Development of the site to be the key development resource for both NGOs and individuals interested in global issues in Alberta is ongoing.

A key task of ACGC has been capacity building for public engagement activities amongst its membership. To this end, we have held a total of five capacity building workshops on topics of interest to the NGO community, including effective proposal writing, diversity, creative participation as a public engagement strategy, effective engagement with media and decision makers, organizational fundraising, and effective media. ACGC is currently undertaking the production of resources which will assist member groups in their public engagement, as well as developing a resource library for use by members throughout the province. ACGC has also reinvigorated the Development Education Network (DEN) which provides a forum for NGOs to discuss strategies for global education initiatives.

ACGC has also been expanding its activities in the community in order to increase the profile and visibility of the Council and its members. ACGC has helped to facilitate presentations for member groups in the province, has been called upon to provide speakers for numerous public events including a symposium on Human Rights as Global Security, the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Global, Environmental and Outdoor Education Council, the Parkland Institute, and the annual Global Visions Festival. ACGC has also had numerous articles and opinion pieces in urban weeklies and major provincial newspapers. ACGC is increasingly contacted by both the media and the general public for information on development issues or information about NGOs in Alberta.

The Alberta portion of the national Provincial Council initiative on International Cooperation and Global Human Security, which focused on human security and the upcoming 2002 G8 Summit, has dramatically increased the profile of the Council. 500 education kits and facilitators packages have been distributed, and there have been over 1000 additional downloads from the website. ACGC coordinated a provincial educational tour of eleven communities in Alberta, which has reached hundreds of Albertans and is currently wrapping up the final cities.

Finally, on behalf of its membership, ACGC has the increased the level of cooperation and interaction with national organizations such as CIDA and CCIC. In addition to coordinating a presentation by a CIDA representative in Alberta, ACGC has attended three consultations with CIDA in the past two years, is in frequent contact with the newly-established Prairies Regional Office in Edmonton, and made presentations to the national consultations on CIDA's Strengthening Aid Effectiveness document and the meeting of the G8 Environment Ministers in Banff, Alberta. For the past two years, and again for the upcoming year, ACGC is a Provincial Council representative on the Board of Directors of CCIC, and last year we completed the development of a management tool for diversity and inclusion in partnership with CCIC, funded by the Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Education Fund.

Networks and Coalitions

ACGC is a member of the following networks and coalitions:

The Canadian Council for International Cooperation
The Americas Policy Group-CCIC
In Common
The Common Front on the World Trade Organization