"How do changes in international organizations (IOs) come about? How do IOs respond to crises and unforeseen needs of their members? What role do the secretariats and their heads play in doing so? This volume describes how IOs, their secretariats and executive heads launch and implement innovative activities-initiatives-and adapt to respond to crises, members' demands, internal impulses, or interactions with the outside world. It brings together distinguished scholars and experienced practitioners of IOs to showcase and investigate IOs' adaptive capacity, their achievements, and limitations. Through case studies and conceptual frameworks, the book explores a largely uncharted world of IO evolution in which the international secretariats contribute importantly to adapting the role of the IGO. The volume brings to light the mechanisms used by IOs to adapt to what were, on each occasion, new challenges to their efforts to assist and respond to unprecedented needs of members faced with contemporary realities"