The Independent Election Committee (IEC)
The Independent Election Committee (IEC) assists the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) Council in fulfilling its responsibility to appoint members of the Board. The scope of the IEC’s role will evolve in phases over the first six years of the establishment of the IEC through a process of learning and development. To facilitate this process, the 2022 ICM President will chair the IEC until the completion of the 2023 elections.
Membership of the IEC
The IEC is comprised of four members and a Chair, who are selected based on their skills to perform the requirements of the role. All members must be current members of an member association (MA).
The Chair of the IEC is selected based on their leadership skills and knowledge and experience of election committees. Ideally, the Chair of the IEC should be independent of the ICM, as the primary purpose of the role is to steer objective governance of the election process. A neutral Chair provides an objective perspective that assists in selecting the best candidates.
Responsibilities of the IEC
- Developing a suitable competency framework for candidate evaluation.
- Assessing candidates against the framework, ensuring that nominations for appointments are based on merit and objective criteria, and within this context, promote diversity of age, gender, social and ethnic background, geographic, language, cognitive and personal strengths.
- Recommend suitable Board member candidates and Council Delegates to MAs in each region.
Current members of the IEC
Franka Cadée - Interim Chair
Anna af Ugglas
Anna has a broad professional and clinical experience as a midwife since over 30 years. She also has experience as a teacher in nursing. In August 2010, she joined the UNFPA as a Senior Programme Specialist in Midwifery, posted in Bangladesh country office until 2013. Thereafter, she served for UNFPA in Lao PDR for three years, supporting the midwifery development in the country. Following Lao PDR, she worked for the World Health Organization as a consultant in the Maternal Newborn and Child Health Department well as the WASH Department,
Anna joined Laerdal Global Health as a Global Program and Implementation Manager in 2017, leading the P&I team forward in the overall mission of helping saving the lives of mothers and newborns. Since 2021, she is assigned as Team Lead for pre-service, focusing on midwifery education globally.
Sylvia Hamata - Resigned from the independent election committee on 24 February 2023
Farah Babaey
Since 1988, Farah has been working with hospitals, midwifery clinics and Ministry of Health and Medical Education of Iran at different fields of service provision, program management, and policy making and operational research for health sector. She graduated from Iran Medical University as midwife and obtained two master’s degrees in medical education `and Master of Public Health from Tehran University and a PhD degree in Health Policy with a thesis of systematic review of epidemiological, causal status and policy-making issues of maternal mortality in Iran which was published in WHO´s regional journal. Farah is well experienced in evidence and result based strategy development and planning, research design, monitoring and evaluation, program management, health system development and assessment, woman and child health and medical education.
Dr. Collins-Fulea
Dr. Collins-Fulea is a certified nurse-midwife who practised for 38 years in Detroit Michigan, USA, where she led a team of 22 midwives before becoming a full-time assistant professor at Frontier Nursing University in 2019. She has been active in the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) for over 3 decades, holding many different volunteer positions. Of note, she founded the ACNM benchmarking project, was the editor and contributing author of An Administrative Manual for Nurse-Midwifery Services, chaired the Division of Standards and Practice and the Quality Improvement Committee, and served two terms as Vice President where she lead the re-alignment of the ACNM volunteer structure.
Dr. Collins-Fulea is currently the immediate past president of ACNM serving in that role from May 2020-May 2022. She has extensive experience in governance, regulation, management and leadership within a membership organisation and across stakeholder organisations. She also has experience as a delegate to the ICM council meetings as well as attending approximately 8 ICM triannual meetings over the years. In 1998 she was inducted as a Fellow of ACNM, in 2003 she was honoured with the ACNM Foundation Dorothea Lang Pioneer Award and in 2022 she was inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Dr. Collins-Fulea looks forward to meeting midwives from around the globe interested in dedicating time to ICM and being part of the future of the organisation.