MANY TO MANY People-power at the United Nations

Building Partnerships – People Power at the United Nations

Twenty-two hundred keen people embracing over 600 interests and sitting in the same room can generate a lot of energy. This was the scene for the annual conference – the 50th in fact – of non-governmental people, NGOs, organised by the Department of Public Information at the United Nations in New York this September. This year’s theme was: Building Partnerships.

Representatives from 61 countries gathered in the General Assembly Hall to hear the Secretary-General, the (out-going) President of the General Assenbly, Ambassador Razali lsmail, Mrs. Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and others.

Increasingly in recent years UN officials have paid tribute to the input of NGOs to the work of the UN: at this meeting Kofi Annan said that the fact that so many people had come with enthusiasm and commitment to the conference, entirely voluntarily and at their own expense, was proof that the era of civil society is now well and truly a reality. The Secretary-General went on to say that NGOs have become indispensable partners of the United Nations. "NGOs are often there, on the ground, before the international community gives the UN the mandate to act. NGO information, guidance and inspiration can be crucial to us at the United Nations. NGOs are particulary crucial – and I speak from my own experience – in preventatove diplomacy, in humanitarian work, in development, and in human rights. The relationship is complementary, as in the best human relationships. Each contributes something unique, producing a result that is greater than the sum of its parts." So what did the people at the Conference tell each other and the world of their work as UN partners and their hopes for the future? We heard about: - mine clearance in Afghanistan where six Afghan NGOs are working alongside UN personnel to try and clear the remaining landmines in the area;

- the Polio Plus programme of Rotary International, who have raised and spent some $240 million in immunising against polio, working alongside the World Health Organisation; their fervent hope is that by the year 2001 every child will be immunised;

- development projects in Brazil aimed at poverty alleviation and reducing infant mortaility; they are working on improved nutrition, basic sanitation, urban development, professional training and income generation;

- the enormus opportunities for information-sharing through the internet, publications and communications services. Cooperation between the UN Department of Public Information and many NGOs is growing significantly through the ability of NGOs to tap into information formerly limited to UN specialised agencies;

- a Canadian program for debt relief: Jubilee 2000, which urges support for a campaign for cancellation of the back-log of unpayable debt by developing countries. They want the year 2000 to be a debt-free start for 1 billion people;

- the Indian people of North America who told of an agricultural development cooperative in which there was supposed to be full cooperation with indigenous people: sadly partnership had not become a reality, and, so it was maintained, some 300 treaties relating to the rights of indigenous people in the US had been violated;

- a report on the petition initiated by Methodist women and the World Council of Churches calling for a warless world: wars, they say, like slavery and apartheid, have no place in modem society and that if we don’t say stop, who will. A resolution following up the petition will be presented to the new president of the General Assembly on 24 October, United Nations Day;

- in Norway an education programme on the UN and its Agencies is carried out in the schools by the Norwegian UN Association which has a staff of 30. All the kids, we were told, are very knowledgeable about the UN, and very supportive. Human rights were to the fore in many of the presentations: it was said that the causes of the majority of conflicts, internal as opposed to international, were human rights violations. Also an Asian speaker asserted that the arms trade is a massive violation of human rights, and quoted the sobering statistic that the UN (in 1994) spent some 80 cents per human being on implementing its humanitarian programes worldwide, while the worlds’ governments spent about $778 billion in military expenditure – the equivalent of $134 per human being. An American speaker asked why the greatest nation in the world had not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Several individual speakers made impressive speeches which were subsequently discussed in depth by the participants. Douglas Roche, former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament, stressed the need for more democratisation of the United Nations, also the importance of the campaign for a treaty calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons to be in place by the year 2000, Abolition 2000.

Mrs Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, praised the role of NGOs in her particular heart-wrenching work. She said: NGOs are our key partners; some 400 NGOs are implementing 1200 projects in over 120 countries amounting to $US264 million in 1997. Many colleagues work in high-risk security areas alongside NGO workers.

President of the General Asseably, Razali Ismail, drew attention to the telecommunications revolution. He said: "The breaking down of the states’ monopoly on the collection and management of information leads to their relative decline, while instananeous access to information and the ability to use it provides no-state actors with knowledge. And to use a couple of cliches of modern times, knowledge is power and the ability to mobilise public opinion is to master the world. These developments are why governments fear NGOs, avoid having to deal with them if they can help it, or try to manage them at best. NGOs should not underestimate the limits which governments and secretariat understanding have of you. For some governments, their only experience of NGOs derives from what they would consider the annual human rights bashing at the Commission of Human Rights. I urge you to go out and talk to them, drop your politics for a moment and make friends, dispel the myths and stereotypes as a first step." That was good advice which I’m sure many NGOs took to heart, because if progress is to be made they must work in parallel with goverments and UN officials so that partnerships can be firmly built and maintained.

Dame Laurie Salas, Vice-President World Federation of UN Associations, WFUNA, 2 Raumati Terrace, Wellington 6004, New Zealand. Tel/Fax: +64-4-479-3415. (Dame Laurie Salas also represented OPTU at this conference.)

Many to Many
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