PRESS BRIEFING BY PANEL ON UN-CIVIL SOCIETY RELATIONS

PRESS BRIEFING BY PANEL ON UN-CIVIL SOCIETY RELATIONS

Following the Iraq crisis, there was a need for a kind of revitalization of a peace movement across the world and new views on how to guarantee that peace, former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Chair of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations-Civil Society Relations, and Mary Racelis, a Member of the Panel, told correspondents at a Headquarters briefing today.  It was also clear that it was not enough for any one government to “take care of peace”, as there was ample room for worldwide civil society and international public opinion to have a say.

Briefing correspondents on the first day of the fifty-sixth annual Department of Public Information (DPI)/non-governmental organization (NGO) conference entitled “ Human Security and Dignity:  Fulfilling the Promise of the United Nations”, Mr. Cardoso said that nowadays there was an international public opinion which might be the only countervailing force towards the power of some governments.  National public opinion was more sensitive to international public opinion, and “this is how we can move towards a better world”, he said.

That could not be done without international public opinion and the very active presence of NGOs.

The presence and influence of NGOs had been growing in the last few decades, and the last international conference had focused on some important issues such as women, race, and the environment.  The role of NGOs had been very important in those meetings.  But as the United Nations was no longer organizing big conferences on those specific issues it had become important to look for ways to utilize the energy provided by NGOs.

The Secretary-General had asked the Panel not just to consider the importance of the NGOs but also to recommend what could be done, he said.  To what extent could the United Nations and its agencies be more linked to NGOs, and to what extent would Member States accept a more active role for non-governmental institutions in the process of deliberation?  Further, the implementation of decisions depended on their degree of acceptance by civil society.

He said that the Panel had to ask those that were involved what they believed was important and what needed to be done.  The Panel had already sent out questionnaires to thousands of NGOs and was interviewing key NGO stakeholders and those who had a say within the United Nations system and governments.  The Panel would then take into account the results of its surveys, interviews and the regional meetings on how to bridge the existing gap between civil society and governments and also between NGOs and the United Nations.

Some NGOs had insisted that it was also important to have link at the national and local level and considered the United Nations presence as vital in legitimizing their actions.  “But I believe also that altogether, NGOs can also give more legitimacy to the decisions taken by the United Nations and the United Nations system in general”, he said.  He expected the Panel to be ready to present concrete recommendations to the Secretary-General by March 2004.

Mary Racelis, who in addition to being a Member of the Panel, was also a research scientist at the Institute of Philippines Culture at Ateneo de Manila University, said that through their strong efforts, especially with community groups, NGOs in south-east Asia had actively managed to change government policies and programmes.  She believed that if the citizenry, especially those who were more poor, disadvantaged and marginalized, became articulate, understood rights and knew issues and could speak to their representatives as peers, government policy could be changed significantly.

Asked about the role of higher education, Ms. Racelis said that while the NGOs were expert at organizing, often they did not have sufficient technical or scientific knowledge.  But if one could put information that was available through social science research at the disposal of community groups, one found that government officials actually listened more.  Alliances between the academic community and community groups had been found to be effective.

To another correspondent’s question on whether NGOs worldwide generally had more confidence in the United Nations as an institution today than they had 10 years ago, Mr. Cardoso said they were more confident of the United Nations role.  But in order to extend the participation of NGOs within the United Nations and vice-versa, what was essential was to give more trust and confidence.

It was important to have, at the local level, connections between members of the government, the university and local actors.  That was the only way to reactivate communities, he said.  If they all looked at each other with suspicion, it was impossible to bridge their differences and to move ahead.  The same applied to the international level, where it had become obvious over the last few years that suspicions had been overcome and meaningful progress had been made on such important issues as HIV/AIDS largely because of the United Nations role with governments.

Ms. Racelis added that the last 10 years had seen a big jump in the trust and understanding of the United Nations system, largely because of world conferences.  For the first time, “southern NGOS” in particular had been able to participate in such conferences which they had until then been unable to attend due to their distance from New York.  But because of the presence of a “local United Nations” in most developing countries, they would mobilize and organize meetings locally around important issues.  Governments’ agreements that were made internationally could be followed up by the NGOs after a conference.  That had given NGOs a lot of forward momentum.  Now that those international conferences were over, the question was, what were the next steps forward for civil society groups.

Mr. Cardoso said he agreed that, following the Iraq crisis, it was obvious there was a need for a kind of revitalization of a peace movement across the world and new views on how to guarantee that peace.  It was also clear that it was not enough for any one government to “take care of peace”, as there was ample room for worldwide civil society to have a say along with international public opinion.

Paul Hoeffel, Chief of the NGO Section of the Department of Public Information, told correspondents that the Secretary-General placed great importance on the work of the panel which would produce early next year a set of practical recommendations on how the United Nations relationships with civil society might be improved.

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