Liaison Committee Meeting (15 March 2019)
Present
- Marie-Claude Machon Honoré – President
- Philippe Beaussant – Vice President
- Richard Francis APEH – Executive Secretary
- Marie-Christine GRIES – Treasurer
- Cyril Noirtin -Responsible for Communication
- Diego Gradis – NGO collective Action
- Fathima Lahnait – Forums and International days
Participating virtually
- Andrey Cheschev -
- Daves Guzna – Regional Focal Point Africa
- Ratna Wagh- Regional Focal Point Asia
- Abdel-Basset Ben Hassan – Regional Focal Point MENA region
In attendance
Sabina Colombo – UNESCO Secretariat
A point of Order on the question of inviting UNESCO to the Liaison Committee meeting;
Since the Liaison committee works in close collaboration with the UNESCO Secretariat, it is agreed that the secretariat is always welcome to Liaison committee meetings.
Forums
The working modalities for the forums need to be formalised with a charter or guiding principles for reference and good governance.
The steering Committee for each forum will be composed of 4 NGO Focal point ( 2 of which are preferably from the regions) in addition to the Co-leaders.
Forum on Inequalities
Forum Liaison Committee Focal points are Abdel Basset and Richard
Richard and Abdel-Basset are to come up with an initial draft of the concept note by Monday 18th March 2019 to be circulated for further inputs from NGOs
The tentative dates will be in July 2019
Forum on Cultural heritage
Forum Liaison Committee focal points are Philippe and Ratna
Ratna is organizing a forum in May/June in corporation with UNESCO NatCOM in India
Forum on Education and Global Citizenship
Liaison Committee Focal points are Marie-Christine and Fatima
The work that has been done by the group of NGOs on education can be acknowledged as initial draft upon which Forum working group can build upon
A larger working group will be constituted to incorporate the current NGO groups as well as the bigger NGO communities within and outside Paris
Forum on GCE and Peace Festival
The Committee took note of the letter received from Gorain Gipuzkoa Province in Spain inviting the Liaison Committee to host a forum on peace including a music choirFestival sponsored by the regional government in the Basque Country in Spain. A consultation is planned with relevant stakeholders to make a final decision.
May/June 2020
Forum on Science, technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Liaison Committee Focal Points are Daves, Diego and Cyril
Proposed title: Science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship supporting SDGs
Proposed date is November 2020
Collective work/working groups
Focal point: Diego
At first meeting on 14.03.2109 it was decided to organize one meeting per topic
- Link between forums and the general work of the NGO conference, and discussing the points on Forums raised at the CIONG – meeting on this take place on May 21 2019
- How NGOs can accommodate and facilitate support for New NGOs that are accredited to UNESCO – meeting on June 7th 2019
- How to collect and use the intellectual production that has been developed in the past years by the NGO communities – date to be announced
One meeting per topic to brainstorm and come up with concrete proposals. Possibly, other topics to be defined and addressed at a later stage.
Working Group on Climate
Liaison Committee Focal point Andrew and Richard
Communication Strategy
Digital strategy
3 communication objectives/targets will be on
- Institutional communication
- Internal communication
- Communication with NGO partners
The committee will work on
- Blog
- Revamping the site
Communication from Secretariat
- UNESCO will re-launch and put online the questionnaire regarding NGOs relation.
- UNESCO is in a process of general restructuring which might have some implication for the desk for Intergovernmental and non-governmental partners which might be moved to the office for Strategic planning.
- The letter written by the NGO group for the organisation of forums is on the desk for NGO relation and now awaiting confirmation of date from the DG’s cabinet office to fix the appointment
Youth
Youth will remain a cross cutting issue within the entire processes and action of the Liaison Committee leveraging on the UN SG Strategy on Youth.
A youth advisory team will be created with an initial meeting held virtually to brainstorm to optimize youth engagement and participation in the Liaison Committee action as well as UNESCO’s.
A bilateral meeting will be arranged with the Youth Desk to discuss preparatory process for the UNESCO Youth Forum which might be held in November 8 and 9, 2019.
Internship
The committee is to study the different expression of interests for internship
Next Liaison Committee meeting to be planned in MAY