Member Travel Fund (MTF)

The APC Member Travel Fund MTF travel fund (formally known as the CIPP travel fund) was established in March 2005 to facilitate member participation in events that are relevant to the APC strategic priorities.

The current policy guiding access to and use of the Member Travel Fund is reflected in the following.

Overall strategy guiding APC participation in events

APC’s participation in events is guided by the APC Strategic Priorities.

The travel fund is intended to:

• Build member capacity to more fully engage in activities and processes APC has prioritized

• Highlight and make more visible the work of members at the national level, at regional and international events and processes

• Support members in connecting international processes to local processes

In general, the member travel fund is intended to support participation in international or regional events, but where justification can be made for participation in a national event, these requests are considered.

Types of events which qualify for travel fund support

• World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) follow-up events including the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

• Thematic meetings that relate to APC’s strategic priorities (for example, wireless, gender and ICT policy, access to knowledge, FOSS, environmental sustainability and ICTS)

• Global and regional processes that related to APC’s strategic priorities (for example the World Trade Organistion (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), UNESCO)

• Communication, media and social movement events (such as the World or Regional Social forums, AMARC annual conferences, Highway Africa)

General principles guiding usage of APC Member Travel Fund

• The principle of the travel budget is one of shared responsibility and commitment. In practice, this means that the member is encouraged to contribute as much as they can to the costs of participation in an event and only in very rare circumstances would full costs be covered.

• APC covers the costs of a return airfare (discounted economy) – or, in cases where the costs of an airfare have been covered, the costs of accommodation, per diems and local expenses.

• In general, APC only funds the participation of one member representative in any given event, but under certain circumstances, the possibility for funding of more than one representative could be possible (for example, if the costs of participation are relatively low for each representative.)

• In general, APC will only fund a member for participation in one event in any given calendar year. However, under certain circumstances (such as under-utilised funds, or a demonstrated need) a member may apply to the fund for a second time.

As the budget line is quite small APC encourages members to explore opportunities to contribute to the costs of participation in an event such as applying for scholarships and member contributions. This ensures that as many members benefit as possible from the fund.

APC had sources of funding for the period 2005-2007 (programme funding, core support and an institutional strengthening grant) that allowed us to support several regional member meetings and the two council meetings (Varna, 2005 and Rio, 2007) as well as to the allocate funds to the “Member Travel Fund”. Unfortunately this funding came to an end in December 2007. The Member Travel Fund is therefore not active anymore.

More information: mtf-at-apc.org