Candidate for

IFMSA PresidentBenjamin Skov Kaas-Hansen

Dear IFMSA friends and colleagues!

This is it. As I am writing this it seems time has flown by all too quickly. I started my IFMSA “career” as a general GA delegate, supposed to attend the SCORA sessions, but ended up joining the SCORP and Presidents’ sessions instead. I was a bit lost but mostly just amazed by this global community of medical students. I still am.

Now as then, I see so much potential in IFMSA and in all our NMOs. But at the same time, so much energy is wasted on negativity and counter-productivity. IFMSA’s spirit has been corrupted in recent years, and it is high time we bring back the true spirit of IFMSA. We can re-store the true narrative of IFMSA, that IFMSA in fact unites medical students, empowers all of you to have a positive impact on our communities. While we have fun. IFMSA is about fruitful partnerships, not dirty politics.

We have already seen that increased transparency spurs a trustful environment, and leaves energy to carry out great activities and develop our organisation. But we can do better; more than ever, we need open and responsive leaders. As President, I will do what I can to make IFMSA responsible, strategic, and inclusive.

It is responsible to strengthen the organisation’s internal structures. To optimise our work through allocating tasks logically within and between the Executive Board, Super-vising Council and Team of Officials. We must appreciate our limitations as students and as an organisation. So, if we want to achieve more we should work smarter, not harder. We will have realistic expectations to ourselves and each other. It is a sign of failure as a leader, if your volun-teers are stressed or burn out, so we will focus on prudent management and investment of all our resources, both human and financial.

We will be proactive, plan ahead, and not make hasty de-cisions without first having the full picture and assessing potential pitfalls. We will not enter agreements or receive funding before we know that are capable of meeting the expectations and obligations.

Being strategic is a lot more than having a strategic plan. It is crucial to get a good start to the implementation of Strategy 2014-17, and that we set up solid mechanisms to carry out and monitor our strategic work from day one. It is not an easy task, so to ensure a successful process we need Executive Board members with experience on this field. At the same time strategic planning must leave room for creativity, and let each year’s Team of Officials leave their own imprint on the organisation. But being strategic is more than this. Every activity of IFMSA must be relevant to our mission. IFMSA has the potential to do so many things, but not at the same time. Prioritising our energy and time means that what we do, is done wholeheartedly.

IFMSA as an inclusive organisation means that our arms are open to everybody, and that anybody is allowed to have a voice in and benefit from IFMSA. Only if we allow all voices to be heard can we claim to truly represent medical students. We must simplify procedures, cut down the jun-gle of bureaucracy, and do all we can to explain the work-ings of the organisation: bylaws, the Strategy, our projects, etc. Particularly the Executive Board should be accommo-dating towards NMOs, and provide unbiased guidance to empower them to engage in the organisation, and make informed decisions during our meetings.

I was President of the Organising Committee behind the 60th anniversary GA in Denmark in 2011, leading a team of 80 volunteers hosting one of the largest GAs in IFMSA’s history. I have served two full years as IMCC Vice-President for International Relations, sitting on the Execu-tive Board, with the responsibility of executing the first and second annual work plans of IMCC’s 2012-2014 Strategy, managing a €700,000-€800,000 annual budget, and tak-ing care of a secretariat with several employees. I have been an active participant in the IFMSA reform process from the beginning. And I now serve as IFMSA Treasurer, which has given me extensive and intimate knowledge on the organisational engine that drives IFMSA, and has al-lowed me to play a central role in the cleaning up of IFMSA after years of mismanagement of the organisation.

So, why am I still here? Because I believe in IFMSA! That we can be so much more for medical students. Because IFMSA needs a President with knowledge on and experi-ence with strategic leadership, financial management, or-ganisational development, and handling professional staff. Because as President, I will ensure continuity from this term to the next at this crucial point in our history, when we are about to launch our Strategy 2014-17. Because, since August I have witnessed firsthand how much a united Ex-ecutive Board can do, how we have been able to include all focus areas from my Treasurer candidature in our daily work, and that we have quickly made great achievements.

With a unique body of theoretical, practical, and rele-vant experience, and the motivation to give IFMSA my full attention throughout the next term, I hope you will entrust me the task of serving as IFMSA’s President 2014-15.

I hope you will enjoy reading my candidature. If you have questions or comments, please approach me either virtu-ally via email or Skype, or in-person in Tunisia.

Yours,

Benjamin Skov Kaas-HansenCandidate for the position of IFMSA President 2014-15

Stakeholders

Utilise the potential of our alumni

Who to work with, and how to do it

IFMSA as a credible recipient of funding and sponsorships

Organisation

Strategy 2014-17

Meaningful participation of NMOs

Implementation of the reform process outcomes

Professionalism

Solid processes to handle grants and partnerships

Evaluation of our activities and their impact

Effective and engaging communication

Leadership

Logical allocation of tasks within the Team of Officials

Real and relevant empowerment of IFMSA Officials

Decentralise decision making

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PRIORITIES 2014-15In this section I outline four priorities that I believe should be the cornerstones for IFMSA in the 2014-15 term. Some ideas are concrete, and some are more general. Which of these will ultimately be part of the annual plan for the Fed-eration depends on the collective plan that will be created in collaboration between the new Executive Board, Super-vising Council and Team of Officials. By setting goals to-gether as a team we will have a joint project, over which everybody feels ownership.

LeadershipIFMSA needs a President who leads the Federation, priori-tises the internal and strategic strengthening of IFMSA, and helps every Official realise their potential. Indeed, with IFMSA’s mission and structure it is the principal task of the President to be the strategic leader of the organisation, and to build and maintain a coherent team. We need to focus our efforts, and work shoulder to shoulder to realise our collective work plan to achieve our goals. We need a logical division of tasks and responsibilities: we must re-think how we work internally to improve our results exter-nally. By this, I mean that the VPE can take over many ex-ternally oriented tasks, and the Treasurer could spearhead our fundraising efforts. We must stop working in silos, and start collaborating as a team on overarching tasks and issues, so all Officials are allowed to play their part. Every team member must be allowed to play an active role in setting goals for the term. This way we ensure a coherent effort, in which each team member plays an invaluable role. The Supervising Council should be given a more (pro)active role in the Federation, particularly in the creation and implementation of our Strategy 2014-17.

Meaningful participation at all levels of IFMSA will be the red thread throughout the 2014-15 term. There are so many volunteers in IFMSA, all from different cultural and geographic background. So, we need to collectively define the work culture of IFMSA, to have a frame of reference in our daily work. Only if we create a safe environment for working and learning will our volunteers reach their full potential, for the benefit of IFMSA and themselves. Indeed, under my leadership we will nurture creativity, and treasure innovative ideas and constructive solutions to the chal-lenges IFMSA is facing.

You cannot properly manage and run an international or-ganisation, with an annual €300,000 budget, and hun-dreds of volunteers depending on your work, if you do not possess basic legal, financial, and organisational knowl-edge. That is why we need to build organisational liter-acy among all IFMSA Officials. This way, we honour our commitment to empower future leaders in health, and Offi-

cials will have the necessary competences to skillfully run IFMSA, and make informed, balanced decisions.

Decision making in IFMSA is very centralised, and we need to change that. IFMSA should be an incubator where we empower future leaders in health. People grow when we give them a chance to learn, and when their involvement has a purpose. We should exploit the most powerful cur-rency of volunteerism, personal development. Therefore, we should, to the greatest possible extent, decentralise decision making to those who work with the relevant areas and issues on a daily basis. But, freedom comes with re-sponsibility, so when we delegate decision making to our Officials and International Assistants, it must come with the condition that it will not damage the organisation itself.

ProfessionalismWe need to get our house in order, and acting profession-ally is not the same as being grey or corporate. If we want the world to take us seriously, we need to first take our-selves seriously. This means that IFMSA needs to put in place the necessary institutional processes and mecha-nisms to handle partnerships, grants, and sponsorships. Recent incidents with mismanagement of agreements, inadequate reporting, and repayment of grants clearly show the necessity of this. It will do us no good to increase the inflow of funding from donations and sponsorships, if we are unable to invest it appropriately and properly report on its use. There are currently two main barriers to putting these mechanisms in place. First, as medical students we lack the required knowledge, making it necessary for us to seek help and expertise elsewhere. Second, IFMSA has a high turnover, which makes it very difficult to ensure conti-nuity in institutional procedures. Thus, we need someone with expertise on management, and someone who stays here for several years. What we need is a secretariat.

IFMSA has the potential to do anything, but we cannot do everything. We need to know what works, so that we can prioritise our energy. This way we ensure that, when we do something, we do it wholeheartedly and follow through. Therefore, it is crucial that we evaluate our activities. If some activities do not turn out to have the positive impact we had hoped they would, we must have the courage to seek out other avenues to achieve our mission. We should continue the work initiated by the current Executive Board to put our activities, the reporting from them, and the evaluation of them into system. Only then can we critically evaluate our activities, make sure IFMSA has a positive impact on the communities we serve, and build on our successes in the future.

IFMSA needs open channels of communication. Commu-nicating a message is pointless if the message does not reach the recipient. It is not our fancy suits on shiny pho-tos, skillfully written speeches, and long external meetings

reports that make a real difference. What makes IFMSA stand out, and where we can make a tangible difference for medical students, is our solid foundation in the national and local grassroots layers. We need appealing and en-gaging communication that is easy to read and under-stand, and radiates the right blend of professionalism, young idealism, and passion. Our communication must resonate with our stakeholders, especially NMOs, to en-gage them. And engagement of NMOs is the only way to align their needs with IFMSA’s priorities.

StakeholdersAs with so many other aspects of IFMSA’s work, we need to be systematic in our way of dealing with stakeholders. Every agreement we enter, every commitment we make, must have a purpose and be relevant to IFMSA’s mission. But we have lost the overview; so many formal partner-ships have been made, so many informal collaborations exist, that we simply do not know what is up and down anymore. And even worse, there does not seems to be an explicit direction or purpose for all our external affairs. For example, if we group our stakeholders into the following categories, we can then evaluate the pertinence of all part-ners, collaborators, and funding sources, according to our mission and strategic priorities.

Partnerships would have concrete goals or intended out-comes, and should be time-bound. An example is the proposed agreement with the European Federation of Psychology Students’ Associations that is limited to three years, and in which one of the goals is a successful con-ference.

Collaborations would be formal or informal, ongoing or be of a more ad hoc nature. There would not be a concrete end-point or goal, and they would not necessarily expire after a predefined period. Examples include collaborations with organisations providing speakers for IFMSA meetings, or working with IFMSA on advocacy topics.

Funders encompasses grant makers, donors, and spon-sors, for which we need to make IFMSA a credible recipi-ent. Donations and grants would provide IFMSA with re-sources to carry out specific activities or for administration purposes; examples include our current Ipas grant and the Youth in Action programme, respectively. Sponsorships would entail that IFMSA provides one or more services to the sponsor, usually advertising opportunities.

We are yet to utilise the enormous potential of our alumni network. From obtaining funding without strings attached that would help IFMSA build a strong institutional core, over expertise on organisational development, to providing information on IFMSA’s history to help us lead IFMSA in the right direction. We need to find a way to exploit this poten-tial of our alumni network.

OrganisationThe 2014-15 term will be the first with an annual work plan based on Strategy 2014-17. We deserve a good start on IFMSA’s “strategic era”, and for that to happen it is key that Executive Board members in general, and the President in particular, have experience with strategic planning. We need long-term goals to strive for. But it is crucial to give every new team room to define their own short-term goals, so they are allowed to leave an imprint on the organisation. As we know, a job with high expectations and low influ-ence may lead to stress and burnout. Therefore, Strategy 2014-17 should have only two or three specific goals. This would make the strategic plan realistic, and every year the volunteers investing thousands of working hours in IFMSA would still have time and energy to focus on and achieve their own short-term goals.

For years now, reform has been a central focus area for IFMSA. And at this March Meeting in Tunisia, NMOs will hopefully come together and agree on how to put the con-clusions of the Santiago Task Force into force. Following this, it will be a key responsibility of the Team of Officials to integrate this into Strategy 2014-17 and finally implement the reform process outcomes.

IFMSA has expanded in recent years. It has been amazing to witness, but with this come new challenges: how do we engage and activate all NMOs in a meaningful way? And how can IFMSA be an active partner for NMOs? We need to turn things around. It is the prime task of IFMSA to en-sure that NMOs benefit from being members of IFMSA. Therefore, IFMSA needs to be a source of advice, guid-ance, and support from peers and professionals with ex-pertise on issues relevant to NMOs. IFMSA needs real NMO participation: we need to trim the bureaucracy, and simplify regulations. And I want IFMSA to be relevant for local NMO members. Let us open up our meetings for non-English workshops/trainings, provide written manuals and guides in other languages than English and similar. We should consider any measure that NMOs believe would provide them a better platform to voice their opinions, and that would make IFMSA a relevant partner and supplier of expertise at the national and local levels.

There is a great potential in strengthening our regions, so they become drivers of national empowerment and inter-NMO cooperation. IFMSA should, to a much greater extent, seek to build its internal structures to truly support NMOs carrying out solid national projects. Imagine if NMOs and IFMSA could partner up, and funding from large, often international institutions could be channelled into national and sub-regional projects through IFMSA. The scope for IFMSA to serve NMOs in this way would be enormous. It would require a lot from IFMSA but it is not unrealistic. So if we go for it, this could even be included in Strategy 2014-17 as one of our long-term goals.

CURRICULUM VITAEGeneral information

Benjamin Skov Kaas-HansenBorn July 9, 1987, in Aarhus, DenmarkTelephone: +45 60 19 68 01Email: benskov@gmail.com // treasurer@ifmsa.orgSkype: benjamin.skov.kaas-hansen

Project and Organisational Experience10/2013-present IFMSA Executive Board member, Treasurer. Responsible for the financial management

and governance of IFMSA2013 Initiator, official IMCC-Denmark bid to host EuRegMe 20152013 Co-initiator, Global Health Journal Club at Aarhus University2012 Initiator, 4-day simulation of a World Health Assembly for Nordic students; now called NorWHO

and part of the IFMSA Transnational Project “WHO Simulations”2012-2013 Actively engaged in UAEM advocacy efforts on access to essential medicines, the so-called

WHO CEWG process (http://www.who.int/phi/cewg/en/)1/2012-12/2013 IMCC Executive Board member, Vice-President for International Relations2011 Cofounder, IMCC DanZania (partnership project between IMCC-Denmark and TAMSA-

Tanzania, on family planning and sexual rights)2011 Facilitator, IFMSA SCOPH SWG on Infectious Diseases1/2011 Co-organiser, IMCC/Medsin-UK Global Health Weekend Seminar on Health in Disaster and

Crisis Situations5/2010-8/2011 IFMSA August Meeting 2011 Organising Committee President2009 Co-organiser, Sexekspressen Summer Camp 2009

PublicationsSadie R, Kaas-Hansen BS, Iversen JH (2013). Beyond access to medicines: Eliciting high–income country support

for a new global health research and development paradigm. Journal of Global Health;3:020303 (doi: 10.7189/jogh.03.020303; PMID: 24363917)

Extracurricular Courses and Seminars attended9/2013 Refleks 2013 - Strategic Communication for Organisations2/2013 Online course: “Health for All through Primary Health Care”, hosted by Johns Hopkins School of

Public Health9/2012 Refleks 2012 - Personal Impact as a Leadership Competence9/2011 Refleks 2011 - Strategic Leadership in Volunteer Organisations5/2011 International Leader Training Seminar2/2011 IFMSA Training New Trainers11/2009 Project Monitoring and Evaluation: seminar on continuous monitoring and evaluation of long-

term projects10/2009 Logical Framework Approach (LFA): a generic management tool for proper planning, monitor-

ing, and evaluation of large-scale projects

IFMSA Meetings attended1/2014 EMR 10: the tenth Regional Meeting for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, 2014 (Kuwait)8/2013 IFMSA General Assembly August Meeting 2013 + preGA “To Ensure IFMSA Excels” (Chile)*4/2013 EuRegMe X: the tenth Regional Meeting for the European Region, 2013 (Italy)3/2013 IFMSA General Assembly March Meeting 2013 + preGA “Global Health Diplomacy” (USA)*8/2012 IFMSA General Assembly August Meeting 2012 + preGA “Think Tank” (India)*3/2012 IFMSA General Assembly March Meeting 2012 + preGA “Presidents’ Workshop” (Ghana)*2/2012 FINO Annual Meeting (Finland)

8/2011 IFMSA General Assembly August Meeting 2011 - 60 years Anniversary (Denmark)**3/2011 IFMSA General Assembly March Meeting 2011 + preGA “Think Global” (Indonesia)8/2010 IFMSA General Assembly August Meeting 2010 + preGA “Health and the City” (Canada)3/2010 IFMSA General Assembly March Meeting 2010 + preGA “Media” (Thailand)11/2009 Sexpression National Assembly (UK)

* As NMO President, representing IMCC-Denmark** As President of the Organising Committee

International Conferences attended11/2012 Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Annual Fall Conference (USA)5/2012 World Health Assembly (WHO’s annual general assembly) as part of the delegation of Universi-

ties Allied for Essential Medicines (Switzerland)4/2012 Medsin Global Health Conference - “Conflicted: The war for Health” (United Kingdom)12/2010 EuWHO - the first European World Health Assembly simulation

“The right to health and access to essential medicines and vaccines” (United Kingdom)10/2010 Second World Health Summit (Germany)4/2010 Unite for Sight Global Health and Innovation Conference 2010 (USA)

Build capacity through training, projects and exchange opportunities, while embracing cultural diversity so

as to shape a sustainable and healthy future.

Unite medical students worldwide to lead initiatives that impact positively the communities we serve.

Represent the opinions and ideas of future health professionals in the field of global health, and work in

collaboration with external partners.

The IFMSA we want is

ResponsibleStrategicInclusive

- in order to achieve the mission of IFMSA: