Meeting Interaction Guidance

Be respectful: Use a tone of voice that shows you value colleagues. Make time to start and finish important conversations.

Listen to understand: Stay curious and ask questions without accusation.

Make and take space intentionally: Facilitate meeting dynamics that allow balanced input from all participants.

Assume good intent: Remember that we all care about ACARE’s mission and are also balancing other responsibilities and priorities.

Encourage each other’s leadership: Everyone is an expert in different ways. Enable knowledge-sharing and be clear about how decisions are made and who makes them.

Build trusted relationships: Foster authenticate communication that creates a safe space for colleagues to get to know each other and facilitates decisions, collaboration and action.

ACARE Meeting Coverage Overview

As a sponsored participant of an ACARE event, you can expect to have your flight covered, a visa (if needed), and DSA to cover your hotel/accommodation and related expenses during your stay.

Please be aware that sponsorship changes from event to event and is often based on available funding from partners, projects, or other sources. Thus, conditions change and at times, support will change.

Please be patient with our team. We are working to make our collective freshwater resources healthier, and to do so, we must work together. So let’s work together, for the lakes!

Daily Subsistence Allowance

Annual Meetings:
Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) will be provided to each member for the days of travel and each day of the event. ACARE will make efforts to provide DSA as soon as possible after arrival in the host country. Participants can expect to receive local currency, so that they may be able to cover any costs, such as accommodations, immediately upon arrival.

Note: DSA amount will depend on the daily activities of individual events and whether accommodations are provided. For example, if meals are provided for some (or all) days of an event, the DSA will be lower for that individual day (or event), as participants would not need to purchase those meals. Additionally, some events or meetings might require a single hotel that all participants must stay in due to the nature of the event (such as a workshop) or the location (no other possibilities are available). In these cases, the hotel will be booked by ACARE for all participants and DSA would not include money for accommodations.

Exceptional or unplanned extra days of travel:
At times, depending on your location and the destination of the ACARE event, it might take an extra day of travel (e.g. complex flight schedules might require an overnight enroute). support for any instance out of the control of ACARE’s travel agency, will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

​Extracurricular Days or Travel:
ACARE will hold meetings in various parts of Africa, some with very interesting features and holiday potential. Any extra days either before or after the meeting or event, that a participant would like to spend, will be covered by that participant. Additionally, if the cost of the flight for the event changes due to a participant’s desire to stay for extra days, that cost will also be incurred by the participant.

Accommodations

When receiving a DSA, you are responsible for securing, and paying for, your own accommodations. ACARE will make efforts to highlight accommodations where a majority of the participants, and staff, will be staying. We encourage all participants to stay at, or very near, the identified accommodation to facilitate networking and socializing among colleagues. Suggested accommodations will consider cost and safety when choosing hotels.
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If you choose not to stay at the designated event hotel, you should stay within a 15-20 minute walk (at most) to the event location for ease of arriving at the event in a timely manner. You are expected to arrive at the meeting venue at least 10 minutes prior to the start of each day/session.
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Transport to and from your accommodations to the event site will not be provided unless otherwise noted. See Local Transport section.
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If you are participating in a specific event, you can contact the event coordinator to request being a part of a group rate at the designated event hotel.

International Flights & Travel

This section refers to getting from your home city or country to the event city. ​
Please see Local Transport section for all other travel guidelines.
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Flights:
ACARE will purchase your flight for you. If you choose to purchase your own flight and require reimbursement, you must get permission from ACARE prior. Self-purchased flights, once agreed upon, will be refunded by ACARE up to the amount of the cost of other, comparable flights from your airport to the host city.

If the destination is too far to travel by road, ACARE will support round-trip flights from their nearest, home airport to the event-city airport.
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Flights will be purchased in economy class. A balance between inexpensive and time-traveled will be calculated. When necessary, or as airline schedules allow, participants may have to arrive at the event-city a day early. Travel inconveniences occur with all travel and, while we will make our best efforts to reduce such inconveniences, we don’t control the airline schedules and flights.
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If you are flying from a location outside of the ten African Great Lakes riparian countries, you must contact the event coordinator to have your travel approved, as budgets are largely based on regional flights.
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Overland:
For those within driving distance (~8 hours), ground transportation costs will be provided. For those traveling by road, you must provide a cost estimate of round-trip prior to travel. Private hires or chauffeured staff vehicles will not be funded unless pre-approved. Such costs are often more expensive than flights. To arrange overland travel, contact the event coordinator.

Local Transportation

This section refers to:
1) Travel to and from your house to your nearest airport
2) Travel to and from the event-city airport to the venue or accommodations, and
3) Local event-city transport
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1. From your house to the airport:
ACARE will not fund transport to and from your house to your nearest airport. In exceptional circumstances, local transport reimbursement will be made based on need and with receipts submitted. Such transportation must not exceed USD 30. You must pre-approve such transportation through the event coordinator to receive reimbursement.
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2. Travel to and from the event-city airport to the venue/accommodation:
ACARE will make efforts to ​offer transportation from the event-city airport to the venue or hotel, especially when a larger number of participants arrive together. However, you should be prepared to make your way to your accommodations or venue on your own, checking with your hotel to see if they supply shuttle service.
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3. Local event-city transport:
ACARE will not support local, event-city transportation (e.g. taxis or shuttles) from hotels to the event venue. We suggest that you stay in accommodations within walking distance to the event venue. See Accommodations section for more details.

Travel Documents

Except for Visas, participants are responsible for all travel documents related to their travel, whether domestic or international.
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1.a) Visa: Participants will need to obtain their own visa (if required for attending the event). A Participant may either arrange to have their visa paid for directly by ACARE, if such processes exist, or provide ACARE with receipts regarding visa acquisition for reimbursement. Visas will only be reimbursed at single-entry costs. When applying for a visa, you might need a Letter of Invitation.

1.b) Visa specifics: Participants must review their visa and determine if it is single-entry, the dates the visa is valid, and any other details. If a participant is prevented from entering a country/destination due to invalid visa (due to short active visa dates or other entry limitations) ACARE will not cover any costs as a result of these errors.
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2) Passport: Participants are responsible for their own passport. ACARE is not responsible for Passports. You will need a valid and up-to-date passport that will not expire within six months of entering the country you are visiting.

3) Letter of Invitation (see next section).

Letter of Invitation // Certificates of Attendance

Letters of Invitation will be provided for all participants. To expedite a letter for your organizational-permission or visa-process, please contact the event coordinator. 

​Certificates of Attendance will be provided to all participants. ACARE will make every effort to provide physical copies at the end of the event. However, for the Annual Meeting, for example, timing and logistics could prohibit such actions and in that case, an electronic copy will be provided. 

Meeting Code of Conduct

The African Center for Aquatic Research and Education (ACARE) is committed to providing a safe, hospitable, and productive environment for everyone attending ACARE-facilitated events, regardless of ethnicity, religion, disability, physical appearance, gender identity, or sexual orientation. A community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is neither healthy nor productive. Accordingly, ACARE prohibits intimidating, threatening, or harassing conduct during its events. This code applies to speakers, volunteers, attendees, and staff.
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For the purposes of this code, harassment includes: offensive gestures or verbal comments related to ethnicity, religion, disability, physical appearance, gender identity, or sexual orientation; deliberate intimidation; stalking; harassing photography or recording; sustained disruption of presentations or other events; inappropriate physical contact; and unwelcome attention. Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.
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If a meeting participant engages in harassing behavior, ACARE leadership reserves the right to investigate and take any action it deems appropriate, ranging from a simple warning to the offender to expulsion from the current and future events. Persons being harassed or observing possible harassment are asked to contact a member of ACARE staff to resolve the situation.
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Board members and Secretariat staff value participants’ attendance at ACARE meetings and other events. We strive to make everyone’s experience as productive and professionally stimulating as possible.
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Please direct any concerns or comments regarding this code to Ted Lawrence, Executive Director.

Good Faith Agreement

ACARE is making every effort to enhance the work on the African Great Lakes, to strengthen science and support the scientific community. We are working hard to ensure that all resources are used to bring the collective community together to be able to work more effectively. Thus, we value every dollar we get to make sure flights, visas, DSAs, and meeting spaces are all taken care of.
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We understand that life events happen, plans change, and schedules beyond our control often prevent us from going about the business we intend. It is thus, here that we enter into a good faith agreement with all participants that partake in ACARE-sponsored activities:

ACARE and the participants of ACARE-sponsored events, including all members of the ACARE-facilitated Advisory Groups, agree, in good faith, to participate and follow the guidelines outlined herein.
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For those who cannot make it to an ACARE-sponsored event, without appropriate notification, could be charged with financial ramification regarding airline ticket or hotel cancellation fees. Should these actions not be feasible, future participation in ACARE-sponsored events could be compromised.