AGID's finances

For almost the first twenty years of its existence, AGID received an annual grant of Can$100,000 from the Canadian International Development Administration (CIDA) but since 1996 AGID’s only sources of income have been from membership fees, a small annual grant from the International Union of Geological Sciences and from occasional grants for specific projects. These latter grants have come from many sources, some of the most generous including CIDA, the UK Department for International Development and UNESCO. AGID is extremely grateful for all the support given it in the past.

With the ending of the annual grant from CIDA in 1996, AGID found it difficult to sustain many of its core activities and as a result membership declined and membership income fell. Though this situation has continued, the voluntary efforts of AGID supporters and ‘in kind’ contributions in terms of time freely given has allowed AGID to maintain some of its operations including publication of our journal, Geoscience and Development, also the South and West Asian Geoscience Newsletter, and, until very recently, the book and journal donation scheme (see above). Increasingly nowadays AGID attempts to raise ‘seed’ money to initiate projects organised by AGID members in their own countries and the relevant members then attempt to win local sponsorship in order to carry through the project.

A good example of such an operation was an international conference on ‘Sustainable Development of Natural Resources and the Environment’ successfully organised in Bangladesh in 2003 by AGID members from the region with some initial seed money from AGID. Subsequently, a small grant from UNESCO and much local support including from the Geological Survey of Bangladesh, the Government of Bangladesh and local industry resulted in the conference going ahead in Dhaka. AGID will continue to operate in this mode in the future.

Since 1996 AGID no longer has had the funds to maintain some limited paid help to a secretariat within a dedicated office as was previously the case and all such work is now voluntary. Office space throughout the years has been provided, at no charge, successively in Canada, Venezuala, Thailand, Brazil and from 2004 in the Geological Survey of Bangladesh where our President, Ms Afia Akhtar is based. The latest financial summary of AGID as submitted to the International Union of Geoscientists can be obtained by clicking here.

Geological Survey of Bangladesh. AGID office is indicated by the arrow.