How Bodour strengthened global publishing industry
TWO-YEAR TERM AS IPA PRESIDENT WAS MARKED BY SEVERAL ACHIEVEMENTS
During Bodour Al Qasimi’s two-year term as President of the International Publishers Association (IPA), and the two years preceding her term as the vicepresident of the IPA in 2019-20, she executed a number of commendable achievements.
These included bringing new publishers’ associations to the organisation, launching new initiatives, inspiring the vision of diversity and inclusivity to be adopted, expanding the scope of work being conducted as well as promoting the publishing industry as one of the main pillars of sustainable development in low-income countries.
Here’s a look at some of the successes of her presidency.
Empowering women
Al Qasimi was the first Arab woman and the second woman in history to assume the presidency of the IPA since it was established in 1869.
She launched the ‘PublisHer’ initiative, which is a platform for promoting and assisting female publishers. The impact she has made during her reign will echo into the future as the next two terms of presidents will also be women, namely, Karine Pansa and Gvantsa Jobava.
She promoted gender equality and equal opportunity, calling for more cooperation among female publishers to exchange expertise and ensure a successful career for themselves and their peers.
Publishing associations
Al Qasimi instilled the concept of partnership between publishers from different cultures during the pandemic
These partnerships resulted in the report From Response to Recovery 2020-2021. It included surveys and case studies, gathering the opinions of a number of representatives from the book industry.
The International Sustainable Publishing and Industry Resilience’ (InSPIRe) initiative was launched based on these survey reports. Al Qasimi made 40 onsite visits to identify with the challenges that face publishers to ensure that the findings and proposed solutions synchronised with local publishing associations worldwide.
IPA educational academy
Al Qasimi helped establish the pioneering International Publishers Association Academy initiative, where over 150 leading officials and executives in the publishing industry, from more than 40 countries, were enrolled. Those that benefited from the initiative included publishing houses, distributors, authors, teachers, book fairs, culture and free speech advocates. Work through the academy now provides dialogues, lectures, and scientific analyses on modern publishing strategies, market trends, and the readers’ preferences for more than 15,000 publishers in over 70 countries.
Africa publishing fund
Al Qasimi continued her efforts by establishing the IPA Africa Publishing Innovation Fund, where she helped to distribute these grants to support the development of publishing practices, including educational publishing and initiatives that provide sources of knowledge for low-income communities. This was to increase access to books, strengthening knowledge and culture, as well as empowering intellectuals and creatives.
Enrolling 11 Arab countries’ associations to IPA
Al Qasimi’s efforts opened the doors for a number of associations in the region, including the Emirates Publishers Association in 2009, Saudi Publishers Association and Tunisian Publishers Association in 2015, Jordanian Publishers Association’ in 2017, associations of Iraq, Mauritania and Morocco who joined in 2018, Somalia in 2020, and most recently, Libya and Sudan in 2021. Syria was also welcomed to join as an observer member in 2022.
Al Qasimi was adamant to open the doors of the IPA to new members, empowering the societies whose voices had long been ignored.