In accordance with the RENPER tradition, at each international seminar event, a Council Meeting is also held. The Council Meeting is different from the regular council meeting which has formal invitations to all council members. The Council Meeting which is held in conjunction with a seminar or conference is taking advantage of the opportunity for council members present at the seminar to discuss the latest relevant issues.

Present at the Council Meeting, Prof. Ibrahim Che Omar and Prof. Nik Maheran represents Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Prof. Ridwan Nurazi, Prof. Zainal Muktamar, Prof. Fahrurrozi, and Prof. Yansen represented the University of Bengkulu, Prof. Tita Evasco Banzuela (San Beda University), Prof. Haslan Abu Hasan (Universiti Sains Malaysia), Prof. Ha Thi Thieu Dao (Banking University of Ho Chi Minh City), Prof. Zumilah Zainalaludin (Universiti Putra Malaysia), and Prof. Sarker Rezaul Karim (Bangladesh Agriculture University). Present at the council meeting interested guests to join RENPER include Prof. Seiji Ueda (University of Sacred Heart), Prof. Men Sotharin (Saint Paul Institute), and Prof. Achyuta Samanta (Kalinga Institute of Technology).

This meeting was chaired directly by the President of RENPER, Prof. Ridwan Nurazi. Some of the issues discussed included membership issues, country chapters, membership fees, collaborative research, RENPER Web, journal publishing, and prospective organizers of the 9th RENPER International Seminar 2020. The issue of membership underscores the need to immediately issue a membership certificate so that it can be used for various purposes network. The President agreed to immediately follow up the procurement of this membership certificate, and asked the members of the council to help immediately send a list of names of RENPER members in their respective universities. For Country Chapter, this meeting agreed for each country representative to prepare the formation of country chapters in each country. For membership fees, all meeting participants confirmed that in the RENPER statute it was stipulated that there was no membership fee, there was no need to change. Fee is only possible to withdraw at international seminars. Initiatives for collaborative research will soon be realized, and each member is asked to think of the simplest and most easily applied scheme, and will be discussed in more depth at the Annual Council Meeting in Bengkulu, Indonesia, 2019. The official RENPER web will soon be completed so that communication between members can be more smooth, also so that the socialization process is more effective. For journals, meetings agree that the 8th RENPER Conference committee will immediately send papers presented to journal editors for selection and publication in the Asian Jornal of Poverty Studies. For the organizers of the next international seminar, the Council is still awaiting the readiness of three candidates namely Prince of Songkla University Thailand, Universiti Sains Malaysia, and Banking University of Ho Chi Minh City. Certainty of the organizers will be decided at the Annual Council Meeting in Bengkulu, Indonesia, 2019.