The path to reaching 12 million members by 2020

When I spoke to Wimbledon Brownies recently about the reach of our worldwide organisation, their jaws dropped as they tried to visualise 10 million members. It's a big number. But when put in the context of the 1 billion girls and young women living in the world today, it's a mere drop in the ocean.

This morning we heard about the Membership Development Strategy which sets the path for giving more girls and young women around the world the opportunity to experience Guiding. We're moving in the right direction. Over the past three years the membership of WAGGGS has grown by 4.1% and within that increase some Member Organisations have achieved phenomenal growth. Tonga has gone from 260 members to 2,338 - up by 761%. Staggering.

To progress us further along this path, with the target to increase membership to 12 million by 2020, the three strands of the Membership Development Strategy will see WAGGGS:

- building capacity in Member Organisations, which will include supporting Associate Members to become Full Members, and a focus on recruiting and retaining more volunteers

- reviewing pathways to organisational membership, looking at the barriers in place and aiming to increase the number of Member Organisations from 145 to 158

- exploring new pathways of membership for girls and young women, a concept that we hope to hear more about over the next few days

As a first step in developing the strategy, we heard today about research conducted in Madagascar, Malaysia, Oman, Poland, St Vincent and the Grenadines to better understand the current limits to our reach. The overwhelming feedback is that what we're doing is appealing to girls, parents and stakeholders. But we have more work to do to improve access to Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting, to be modern and relevant, and to articulate more clearly the value we add.

Immersed in the Conference, since Friday I'd not ventured beyond the hotel and the connecting airport terminal until this evening. The views across Hong Kong at a reception hosted by WAGGGS and Girl Scouts USA were a reminder that there is a world out there... Let's do all we can to empower more girls to be agents of change in that world.