How are the IFLA Sections Standing Committees Members geographically distributed?

One of the strengths of any associative movement is the participation of representatives of the most diverse regions, typologies, and functions. Specifically, in the case of an association, such as the International Federation of Librarians and Associations and Institutions (IFLA), this is extremely important to guarantee a holistic and truly global vision, ensuring the production of activities and products with respect to general differences and specificities. Thus, knowing the geographical distribution of their members can highlight the movement, alignment, and ideas more often present in the institution, but mainly illuminate the regions with less or no participation, enabling the definition of inclusive and specific strategies. This study analysed 865 active members in all the 44 Standing Committee Sections in the 2017-2019 period and indexed: the geographical origin, topics of interest according to the sections they participate in, and positions assumed (elected member, chair, secretary and information coordinator). The result was that the presence of representatives from Africa, Asia & Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean is very small, in all the topics evaluated. In all its 44 Sections, IFLA has 865 members; 757 elected members and 108 corresponding members. Even though the regions aforementioned show to be composed of the largest number of countries and the largest population (Africa, Asia and Oceania, and Latin America and the Caribbean), they have a small share of the IFLA decision-making positions. The three regions combined account for under 1/3 of the total members. Only 18 IFLA sections have representatives from all the five regions, that is, only 43.9% of the IFLA sections can be said to be globally inclusive. Representatives from Europe are 43% of the total elected members in IFLA's professional sections, followed by North America (27%) and then Asia & Oceania (18%), Africa (8%), and Latin America and the Caribbean (4%). The total number of members from IFLA Division V countries participating in IFLA Sections are 259 and come from 49 countries. From the total number of officer positions available in those Sections, the IFLA Division V members occupy only 20% of the total Section chairs, 12% of the total secretaries and 29% of the total information coordinators. Lastly, some recommendations are made, especially to all the three Sections from IFLA Division V.