# Federation of Associations
## 1. Summary
This building block encompasses key points for effective interoperability and federation amongst associations.
## 2. Purpose of the building block
This block is vital in trust implementation within the Association and widening this scope to other associations. This helps create a network effect and federate the BDI Framework. The table below shows an overview of important roles and the corresponding descriptions.
| Role | Description |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Association** | Legal entity that serves as operational anchor for both federated trust/authentication and local onboarding. |
| **Association Admin** | Functionary responsible for operating the services of a BDI Association |
| **Association Register** | Register of onboarded Members and Preferred Business Partners |
## 3. Implementation Considerations
The Discovery mechanism supports an open and loose model without a centralized register that could be searched for all existing BDI Associations. In theory a large number of independent BDI Associations could co-exist without further governance.
In practice it is expected that BDI Associations will form federations and voluntarily agree upon common standards, roles and semantics over a group of Associations.
## 4. Interlinkages with other building blocks
This building block complements the following building blocks:
Association Register Verifiable Credentials Business Partner Reputation Model
and is related to these building blocks:
Onboarding Terms and Conditions
## 5. Elements and their key functions
Federation of Associations creates:
1. Trust Assurance outside the association
2. A Perimeter-less network
The Association Admin is a key role in the Federation of Associations
Association Admin
* responsible for developing and maintaining as well as operating the established Association
* entails various functions, such as setting internal rules and policies, ensuring compliance with internal and external rules, and resolving conflicts that may arise.
* creates mechanisms for continuous improvement of the association, identity management, access controls and risk mitigation to build trust and quality within the association.
* Standardize credentials that are acceptable in the association and can also be agreed upon to be acceptable with other associations
## 6. Core design decisions
* Federation is key to expanding the scope and functional significance of local associations.
* Associations don’t function in silos and zero trust approach requires federation of key trust elements or credentials.
* As most organizations will be active in multiple sectors, the question of supporting interoperability between different sectors is a key challenge. Federation is finding common ground for trust among associations.
## 7. Future topics
* Credentials for Federation
* Interoperability of Associations
## 8. Documents
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## 9. Further reading
*
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