eropa HOLDS GENERAL ASSEMBLY BUSINESS MEETING

Part of the Opening Day of the 2017 EROPA Conference is the General Assembly Business Meeting. Dr. Orlando Mercado, secretary-general of EROPA, opened the said session. The meeting was initiated through the election of the President and the Vice President of the assembly. For President, Dr. Dong Ho Oh of the National Human Resources Development Institute (NHI) of Korea was nominated by the delegation from Indonesia, seconded by delegates from Thailand. For Vice President, the delegation from CLAIR Singapore nominated Dr. Adi Suryanto of the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) of Indonesia, duly seconded by the Nepalese delegation. Without objections both nominees were elected as President and Vice President.
 
Dr. Oh then gave a short message for his election as President, extending his gratitude to the NHI for organizing the general assembly and conference, as well as to the delegates of member countries who put their confidence and trust in him. He added that it was an opportunity for EROPA to promote organizational development and that he will do his best to meet the expectations of the members. He also asked for their active participation.

Afterwards, Dr. Mercado proceeded with the Secretary-General’s report. He thanked the delegates who visited Manila for the 2016 EROPA Conference held last 10-14 October 2016. Likewise, he gave his gratitude to the topnotch work by NHI on the preparations for this year’s conference. Dr. Mercado then reported five general points. First, that the secretariat has improved its website and is working on increasing its social media reach. Second, he mentioned that there will be a prize worth $1000 for the best conference paper for this year. Third, that starting 2017, they will be giving the Raul P. de Guzman award for practitioners who have tremendously contributed to public administration, and announced that this year’s awardee is Dr. Akira Nakamura of the Meiji University, Japan. Fourth, the secretary-general mentioned that as part of continuing publications, the Asian Review of Public Administration (ARPA) is now on time and the 2016 edition will be distributed for the year. Lastly, for the administrative concerns, the secretariat remained to have a small personnel complement, and that no additional budget or supplement need to be asked for the year.

Associate Editor Dr. Maria Fe Mendoza delivered the report of the Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Review of Public Administration (ARPA). She reported that the ARPA has released Volume 26 (January-December 2015) and Volume 27 (January-December 2016). Meanwhile, Volume 28 (January-December 2017) is in the works, and is expected to be released by the end of the year. It is hoped that the shortlist for the conference best paper will provide quality contributions to keep the ARPA on schedule. She also introduced the invitation of SAGE, a renowned publishing company, to publish the ARPA.

The new GA president, Dr. Dong Ho Oh, nominated Maria Anthonette Allones from the Philippines as the new chairperson of the Resolutions Committee. Subsequently, he nominated Masao Kikuchi from Japan as the new chairperson of the Future Plans Committee. Allones went on stage to accept the nomination. As for Kikuchi, Dr. Akira Nakamura delivered the acceptance speech in his place.

The state member representatives of China, Indonesia, Japan, and Nepal delivered their welcoming remarks to the General Assembly. Mr. Zhichao Dong delivered the speech in lieu of Dr. Jiang Wu, Professor at the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science, PR China. For Indonesia, Dr. Adi Suryanto, Chair of the National Institute of Public Administration, delivered the speech. Mr. Hiroshi Arioka, President of the Local Autonomy College, delivered the speech on behalf of the Japanese government. For Nepal, delivering the welcome message is Mr. Mohan Krishna Sapkota, Secretary of the Ministry of General Administration.