MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA - The Libya INGO forum

Full members

INGO Forum Membership is limited to international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) that satisfy the following conditions:

Have a humanitarian mandate, are committed to the humanitarian principles and have adopted the Red Cross/Red Crescent code of conduct.

Are international non-governmental, non-profit, non-partisan, non-political and non-proselytizing organizations, providing assistance to the populations affected by the crisis in Libya.

Have humanitarian operations or are in process of setting up their operations inside Libya.

Are a wp-signup.phped NGO in their home country and can provide formal documentation of their registration as an NGO with a Board of Directors and Constitution (bylaws).

Are wp-signup.phped or in process of being wp-signup.phped as a non-governmental organization with the relevant authorities inside Libya.

Observers

Interested agencies can also apply for observer status. The purpose of the Observer Status is to provide a mechanism for the Forum to formally engage with the full range of INGOs in Libya who are interested to coordinate and collaborate, and to ensure that the Forum’s initiatives and messages benefit from the expertise of INGOs who are otherwise not able or eligible to join. An agency may apply to become an Observer if:

It is affiliated with one of the Forum members but not wp-signup.phped as an independent organisation in Libya (information management agencies, research institutes for instance)

Its internal procedures require it to remain independent from formal coordination mechanisms and as long as it fulfils the other criteria for membership set out above (red cross organisations for instance)

It is planning to start operating in Libya but operations and funding are not yet secured, and the INGO has not started or is just starting the registration process.

Observer members will not be voting members in the CDG or Working Groups, nor will they be eligible to serve on the Steering Committee. Observers may feed in to, but do not have the right to vote on, sign-off on, or object to Forum initiatives or products. Observer organizations are expected to actively participate and respond to Forum initiatives and comply with confidentiality rules.

How to apply

Application for admission (either full membership or observer status) to the Forum shall be submitted to the LIF Director, and shall be confirmed by a vote from the membership during a General Meeting. Confirmation of membership or observer status will occur if not more than ¼ of the membership veto the application.

Send a request

Rights and duties

Forum members have the following obligations:

Participate proactively in meetings, coordinate with other Forum members and external stakeholders, and contribute to advocacy initiatives;
Participate in the decision-making and be willing to exert voting rights to elect the Steering Committee.

Discontinuity from general membership will occur in the following cases:

NGOs can voluntarily withdraw from the body at any time. On withdrawing, agencies agree not to use any confidential information gained as a result of access to the forum.
NGOs can have their membership cancelled by a vote of 2/3 of all members, when the actions of a given member are not in line with the By-Laws and are detrimental to the overall efforts of Libya Forum; when a member gives out confidential information shared by Forum members or the Forum Director, to a third party.
When a member has not been participating in the Forum coordination efforts either in attending meetings or contributing to the debates over emails for a period longer than 3 months, the Director will send a kind request to confirm their interest in the forum. In case of no contribution or participation in votes for 6 months, the member will be removed from the Forum until a request to join again.