World Organization of the Scout Movement

As a result of an international conference held during the first World Scout Jamboree at Olympia, London in 1920, leaders there agreed to create a Boy Scouts International Bureau (BSIB). An office was established at 25, Buckingham Palace Road, London, and the then International Commissioner of The Boy Scouts Association of the United Kingdom, Hubert S. Martin, was appointed as Honorary Director. The first task of the bureau was to co-ordinate the discussions and to prepare a second international conference in Paris in 1922.[1][2] At the 1922 Paris conference The International Conference of the Boy Scout Movement, its committee and BSIB were constituted by the founding member organizations.[2] In 1961 The International Conference of the Boy Scout Movement reconstituted the organization introducing the name World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM). The International Conference of the Boy Scout Movement became the WOSM's World Scout Conference, its International Committee became the World Scout Committee and the Boy Scouts International Bureau became the WOSM's World Scout Bureau.[10]

The World Scout Conference (WSC) is the governing body and meets every three years, preceded by the World Scout Youth Forum. The World Scout Conference is the general assembly of Scouting and is composed of six delegates from each of the member Scout associations. If a country has more than one association, the associations form a federation for coordination and world representation. The basis for recognition and membership in the World Scout Conference includes adherence to the aims and principles of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, and independence from political involvement on the part of each member association.[11]

The Conference meets every three years and is hosted by a member association. At the World Scout Conference basic cooperative efforts are agreed upon and a plan of mutual coordination is adopted.[12]

Date	Number	Location	Country	Member Countries	Host Candidate Countries
1920	Retrospectively referred to as the "First International Conference"	London	United Kingdom	33
1922	First International Conference (retrospectively referred to as the "Second")[2]	Paris	France	30
1924	Third International Conference	Copenhagen	Denmark	34
1926	Fourth International Conference	Kandersteg	Switzerland	29
1929	Fifth International Conference	Birkenhead	United Kingdom	33
1931	Sixth International Conference	Baden bei Wien	Austria	44
1933	Seventh International Conference	Gödöllő	Hungary	31
1935	Eighth International Conference	Stockholm	Sweden	28
1937	Ninth International Conference	The Hague	Netherlands	34
1939	10th International Conference	Edinburgh	United Kingdom	27
1947	11th International Conference	Château de Rosny-sur-Seine	France	32
1949	12th International Conference	Elvesaeter	Norway	25
1951	13th International Conference	Salzburg	Austria	34
1953	14th International Conference	Vaduz	Liechtenstein	35
1955	15th International Conference	Niagara Falls, Ontario	Canada	44
1957	16th International Conference	Cambridge	United Kingdom	52
1959	17th International Conference	New Delhi	India	35
1961	18th International Conference	Lisbon	Portugal[13]	50
1963	19th World Scout Conference	Rhodes	Greece	52
1965	20th World Scout Conference	Mexico City	Mexico	59
1967	21st World Scout Conference	Seattle	United States	70
1969	22nd World Scout Conference	Espoo	Finland	64
1971	23rd World Scout Conference	Tokyo	Japan	71
1973	24th World Scout Conference	Nairobi	Kenya	77
1975	25th World Scout Conference	Lundtoft	Denmark	87
1977	26th World Scout Conference	Montreal	Canada	81
1979	27th World Scout Conference	Birmingham	United Kingdom	81
1981	28th World Scout Conference	Dakar	Senegal	74
1983	29th World Scout Conference	Dearborn	United States	90
1985	30th World Scout Conference	Munich	West Germany	93
1988	31st World Scout Conference	Melbourne	Australia	77
1990	32nd World Scout Conference	Paris	France	100
1993	33rd World Scout Conference	Sattahip	Thailand	99
1996	34th World Scout Conference	Oslo	Norway	108
1999	35th World Scout Conference	Durban	South Africa	116
2002	36th World Scout Conference	Thessaloniki	Greece	125
2005	37th World Scout Conference	Hammamet	Tunisia	122	Hong Kong
2008	38th World Scout Conference	Jeju-do	South Korea	150
2011	39th World Scout Conference	Curitiba	Brazil	138	Australia,  Hong Kong,  Switzerland
2014	40th World Scout Conference	Ljubljana	Slovenia	143	Italy
2017	41st World Scout Conference	Baku	Azerbaijan	169[14]	Malaysia
2021	42nd World Scout Conference	Sharm El Sheikh	Egypt		Malaysia
2025	43rd World Scout Conference				France,  Mexico

The World Scout Committee is the executive body of the World Scout Conference and is composed of elected volunteers and one appointed Secretary General. The World Scout Committee represents World Scout Conference between the meetings of the full conference. The World Scout Committee is responsible for the implementation of the resolutions of the World Scout Conference and for acting on its behalf between its meetings. The Committee meets twice a year, usually in Geneva. Its Steering Committee, consisting of the Chairman, two Vice-Chairmen, a Youth Advisor and the Secretary General, meet as needed.[15]

The committee has 21 members. Twelve, each from a different country, are elected for three-year terms by the World Scout Conference. The members, elected without regard to their nationality, represent the interests of the movement as a whole, not those of their country. The Secretary General, the Treasurer of WOSM and a representative member of the board of the World Scout Foundation and the chairmen of the regional Scout committees are ex-officio members of the committee. The six Youth Advisors to the WSC are elected by the World Scout Youth Forum are participating in all of the WSC meetings and are also part of the governing structure between the meetings.

The World Scout Committee has set up work streams to address the top strategic priorities, as defined by the World Scout Conference, which at present include:

• Youth involvement
• Volunteers in Scouting
• Scouting's profile (communications, partnerships, resources)

Standing committees include:

• Audit
• Budget
• Constitutions
• Ethics
• Honours and Awards
• Working With Others- a consultative committee of the WOSM and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), composed of members of the World Committee/World Board of both organizations
• 2007 Task Force for the 100th Anniversary of Scouting, composed of members of the World Scout Committee, World Scout Bureau, World Scout Foundation, and The Scout Association of the United Kingdom

The World Scout Bureau is headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and has offices in six regional divisions:

  European Region: Geneva, Switzerland; Brussels, Belgium and Belgrade, Serbia

  Arab Region: Cairo, Egypt

  Africa Region: Nairobi, Kenya; Cape Town, South Africa; and Dakar, Senegal

  Asia-Pacific Region: Makati City, Philippines; Australia; Nepal; and Tokyo, Japan

  Interamerican Region: Ciudad del Saber, Panama

  Eurasian Region: Kyiv, Ukraine

  grey areas such as North Korea, Laos and Cuba have no Scouting

The World Scout Bureau (WSB, formerly the International Bureau) is the secretariat that carries out the instructions of the World Scout Conference and the World Scout Committee. The WSB is administered by the secretary general, who is supported by a small staff of technical resource personnel. The bureau staff helps associations improve and broaden their Scouting by training professionals and volunteers, establishing finance policies and money-raising techniques, improving community facilities and procedures, and assisting in marshaling the national resources of each country behind Scouting.[11]

The staff also helps arrange global events such as the World Scout Jamborees, encourages regional events, and acts as a liaison between the Scouting Movement and other international organizations. A major effort in the emerging nations is the extension of the universal Good Turn into an organization-wide effort for community development.[19]

Location

The Bureau was first established in London, England in 1920 and moved to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 1959. The International Conference directed the move of the Bureau from Ottawa to Geneva on 1 May 1968.[20] In August 2013, WOSM announced the relocation of the World Scout Bureau Central Office (WSB-CO) to Kuala Lumpur where it is now located.[21]

World Scout Centre is a brand of the WOSM but the two World Scout Centres are operated by regional divisions of WOSM and an independent body:

• Kandersteg International Scout Centre in Switzerland, operated by the Scouts International Home association.[22]
• Cairo International Scout Centre in Egypt, operated by the Arab Region.

The Better World Framework combines the Scouts of the World Award, Messengers of Peace and World Scout Environment Programmes as programme initiatives administered by the World Scout Bureau. [23]

1939-1955 version of the World Scout Emblem, used by the Boy Scouts International Bureau and International Committee members

The WOSM emblem and membership badge is the World Scout Emblem, a purple, circular logo with a fleur-de-lis in the center, surrounded by a length of rope tied with a reef knot (also called a square knot). Baden-Powell used a fleur-de-lis badge awarded to British Army scouts and subsequently adopted and modified the badge for Scouting. The arrowhead represents the North point on a compass, and is intended to point Scouts on the path to service and unity. The three points on the fleur-de-lis represent the three parts of the Scout Promise: - service to others, duty to God and obedience to the Scout Law.[24] The two five-point stars stand for truth and knowledge, with the ten points representing the ten points of the Scout Law. The bond at the base of the fleur-de-lis symbolizes the family of Scouting. The encircling rope symbolizes the unity and family of the World Scout Movement.

The needs of Scout youth in unusual situations has created some interesting permutations, answerable directly to the World Scout Bureau. These permutations fall generally into three categories:

• "National" Movements not operating within the boundaries of their original homelands, such as the Russian and Armenian exile groups;[10]
• Small, non-voting associations basically viewed by the BSIB as "councils", such as the Boy Scouts of the United Nations and the International Boy Scouts of the Canal Zone[25]
• The less well-known directly registered "mixed-nationality Troops".

Both the Boy Scouts of United Nations and the International Boy Scouts of the Canal Zone have long since disbanded, and the only remaining directly registered Troop is the International Boy Scouts, Troop 1 located in Yokohama, Japan.

In addition to these three groups a temporary recognition was extended by the BSIB to Scouts in displaced persons camps after World War II. In 1947 at the 11th International Conference the "Displaced Persons Division" of the BSIB was established to register and support Scouts in displaced person camps in Austria, Northern Italy, and Germany.[26] These Scouts did not receive the right of membership in the Boy Scouts International Conference but gained recognition as Scouts under the protection of the Bureau until they took up residence in a country that had a recognized National Scouting Organization, which they then could join.[27] The D.P. Division was closed on 30 June 1950.[28]

The International Conference of the Boy Scout Movement decided to admit and recognise the exile Russian Scout group as the "Representatives of Russian Scouting in Foreign Countries" on 30 August 1922 and the Armenian Scouts in France were recognized as a "National Movement on Foreign Soil" on 30 April 1929.[10]

The Boy Scouts of the United Nations began in 1945, and for years there was an active Boy Scouts of the United Nations with several troops at Parkway Village in New York City, with but 14 members in 1959.

The International Boy Scouts of the Canal Zone, a group in Panama with Scouts that claimed British and not Panamanian nationality was originally placed under the American Scouting overseas of the BSA but, in 1947, was transferred under the International Bureau. In 1957 the group had over 900 members and existed as a directly registered group until the late 60s.

The third category in the directly registered groups, the "mixed-nationality troops", were registered after discussions concerning such troops took place at the 3rd International Conference of 1924[29] at which the BSIB was authorized to directly register such groups. It seems that the discussion at the 1924 International Conference was, at least in part, prompted by a letter to Baden-Powell from the Scoutmaster of one such troop in Yokohama, Japan.[30] Janning's troop became the first troop directly registered by the BSIB.[31] Only a few troops were directly registered as soon the practice was discontinued and new "mixed" groups were encouraged to join the National Scout Association of their country of residence. In 1955 only two such groups were still active, a troop in Iraq that disbanded that year,[32] and the first group to be registered, the International Troop 1 in Yokohama.[33] The international troop in Yokohama is the only remaining active troop of the small group of the originally directly registered mixed-nationality troops.[34]

Publications of WOSM include:

• Scouting 'Round the World: a book updated every three years with details on all WOSM member organizations;
• WorldInfo: a monthly circular distributed in electronic format with the help of Scoutnet.

• List of World Organization of the Scout Movement members
• J. S. Wilson
• László Nagy
• Scouts of the World Award

• Facts on World Scouting, Boy Scouts International Bureau, Ottawa, Canada, 1961
• Laszlo Nagy, 250 Million Scouts, The World Scout Foundation and Dartnell Publishers, 1985
• Eduard Vallory, "World Scouting: Educating for Global Citizenship", Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2012

• World Scout Conference & World Scout Committee
• World Scout Bureau & Secretary General of the World Organisation of the Scout Movement
• World Scout Shops

Wikimedia Commons has media related to World Organization of the Scout Movement.