The I.O.I. congratulates the incumbent of its Ontario member institution, Ombudsman André Marin, for being chosen as the recipient of two distinguished awards recently.

The Association of Mediterranean Ombudsmen (AOM) is organizing a training session next month in Morocco , with the financial support of the I.O.I.. It will be held between the 13th and 15th of December 2011 in Rabat.

Spain Acting Ombudsman, Mª Luisa Cava de Llano presented the report “Children or adults? Age assessment practices”, gathering the deficiencies encountered during these procedures.

According to the I.O.I. By-laws the President, the Vice-President and the Treasurer of the I.O.I. need to be elected on a yearly basis.  During the Livingstone meeting of the I.O.I. Board, held from 30 October to 2 November 2011 the Executive Committee has been re-elected by the members of the Board.

The North American Region of the I.O.I. therefore held elections during its meeting in Florida (USA), held in October 2011 and welcomed Hawaii State Ombudsman, Mr Robin Matsunaga as a newly elected Director to the I.O.I. Board.

The annual Report 2010 of Portuguese Ombudsman  Alfredo José de Sousa was delivered to the President of the Parliament on 6th July 2011 and is now available in English.

At its 2011 meeting in Zambia, the Board of Directors unanimously approved the applications for institutional membership from a total of six ombudsman institutions from the Asian, the Caribbean & Latin American and the European Region.

On October 18, 2011, Peter Hourihan was sworn in as Alberta’s eighth Ombudsman. Over the course of his 35 year career with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Mr. Hourihan worked in a variety of policing roles, most recently serving as the Commanding Officer for the RCMP in British Columbia, responsible for federal, provincial and municipal police operations.