DEVELOPMENT: Millennium Forum Reinforces Power of NGOs

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 22 2000 (IPS) - The vast gathering of NGOs at the Millennium Forum, which began a five-day session Monday, is the culimination of one of the most significant international developments in the 1990s: the power and influence of non- governmental organisations (NGOs) worldwide.

“The next step in this evolving process is for civil society to find its collective voice in a manner that is more widely representative of the world’s peoples – and it is to that end that the Millennium Forum promises a significant step forward,” says Techeste Ahderom, co-chair of the Forum.

The six broad themes to be addressed at the Forum are: peace, the eradication of poverty, human rights, the environment, globalisation, and strengthening and democratising the United Nations. The participants in the Forum include over 1,000 NGO representatives from all over the world.

“The goal of the Forum should be the implementation of global agreements and the establishment of a follow-up mechanism with attention focused on what governments can do to implement the plans of action set forth at previous world conferences, and how civil society can help,” Ahderom told reporters.

“Producing more reports that will be filed away somewhere is not going to be helpful,” he added. “We as members of civil society should also have to define what we will do, with or without governments.”

Since the Children’s Summit in New York in 1990, the United Nations has hosted at least seven major UN conferences: on the environment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992; on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993; on Small Island Developing States in Bridgetown in 1994; on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994; on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995; and the Advancement of Women in Beijing, also in 1995. The last of the mega UN conferences was on Human Settlements in Istanbul in 1996.

But most of the “action plans” and “declarations” adopted at these conferences have not been implemented primarily due to a shortage of resources.

Beginning 1997, the General Assembly also began a five year review process to take stock of the successes and failures of these conferences. In June two such review processes will take place in New York and Geneva: “Beijing Plus Five” and “Copenhagen Plus Five.”

“Although encouraging in certain areas, the ongoing review process of major international forums, including the upcoming “Beijing Plus Five” and “Copenhagen Plus Five”, have been very disappointing in terms of achievements,” Ahderom said.

There were some who said that “Rio Plus Five” should really have been called “Rio Minus Five”. “In certain areas, the international community had gone backwards,” he added.

Since Rio, NGOs have actively participated in all of the major UN conferences: about 17,000 NGO representatives at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, about 30,000 at the Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995, about 10,000 at the Hague Forum for Peace in 1999, and about 7,000 mostly Asian NGOs at the Seoul International NGO Conference, also in 1999.

In the past, NGO Forums have been held parallel to major UN conferences. Although pre-conference networking by NGOs has been substantial, it has, nevertheless, been difficult for civil society to produce and present a coherent viewpoint to UN officials and government leaders at the main event, Ahderom said.

“By the time NGOs have finished their consultations, UN leaders have usually gone home,” Ahderom said. But the Millennium Forum, he pointed out, is being held about four months prior to the Millennium Summit in September, which is being billed as potentially the largest single gathering of world leaders.

The Summit is expected to adopt a plan of action spelling out a new vision for the world body. The Millennium Forum will provide the grassroots contribution towards that overarching theme of “The United Nations in the 21st Century”.

Addressing a press briefing last year, former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said he envisions a major role for civil society in global decision-making. Perhaps in the next decade or so, he said, NGOs will have as strong a voice as member states in the UN system.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on several occasions, has praised NGOs for their dedicated humanitarian work in the world’s political hotspots.

“The NGOs are often there on the ground even before the international community gives the United Nations the mandate to act,” Annan said.

Annan has argued that NGOs have become “indispensable partners” of the United Nations – in preventive diplomacy, in humanitarian work, in development and in human rights.

In some of the world’s battle zones, the United Nations is working in close collaboration with several national and international NGOs, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Doctors without Borders, Save the Children, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Red Crescent.