NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee’s Newsletter (Issue number 1)

This newsletter was born of a common will to give more visibility to NGOs’ collective work as official partners of UNESCO, and whose key role has been underlined by our Director General, Mrs Irina Bokova in her message of congratulations addressed to the president and the members of the new Liaison Committee.

The Liaison Committee’s new strategy of communication answers NGOs’ expectations (see ICNGO conclusions) about the latest news of the Liaison Committee and UNESCO, with a space devoted to NGOs for sharing their best practices and events at UNESCO or elsewhere (Word documents, English and French versions to be provided) and for the follow-ups of the fora. We also kindly remind you that a form for NGOs’ posting of events is available (on request) on UNESCO website.

You will find the February Monthly Letter by Assistant Director General, Mr Eric Falt as well as the minutes of the 23rd February’s meeting with all necessary information on the first forum of the new Liaison Committee (7th international forum of NGOs in partnership with UNESCO, 3-4 May, Ryadh) and on the next planned events like the International Day of Peace. You will also find the report on CCNGO meeting.

As we wish to strengthen our cooperation with UNESCO, we would like to create a pool of competences within NGOs’ members and ask you to help us in our mission and register as volunteers in translations, compilations of NGOs’ oral 3mns’statements during the fora or conferences as observers to be posted, reports on conferences and events at UNESCO headquarters or elsewhere and relevant to UNESCO’s priorities.

We are very much looking forward to your suggestions and feedback to improve our communication on NGOs’ collective work.

THANK YOU!

March 16, 2017

Marie-Claude Machon-Honoré,

Chair of Communication and Relations with CCNGO

1, rue Miollis, 75732 Paris Cedex 15. Tél: +33 1 45 68 36 68

www.ong-unesco.org  Facebook: Ngo-UNESCO Liaison Committee

E-mail: comite.liaison.ong@unesco.org

The 2016 International Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) will be held from 12 to 14 December 2016 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.

The 2016 Conference will focus on the theme “The challenge of the digital revolution for NGOs” and will be organized around four subthemes: “The digital revolution and its impact on the diversity of cultural expressions”; “The challenge of access to digital information”; “Does e-learning address challenges of education systems worldwide?”; and, “Science and the digital revolution: which ethical implications?”.

Click here for more information.

The last meeting of the Committee on Non-Governmental Partners (NGP) of the UNESCO Executive Board, took place on Thursday 6 October 2016 at UNESCO Headquarters (Paris, France).

The Committee considered various issues under item 23 of the Agenda of the Executive Board entitled “Relations with non-governmental partners”: the admissions to relations with NGOs and foundations; the follow-up to the decisions of the Executive Board and the resolutions of the General Conference concerning cooperation with NGOs; and the NGOs’ collective work coordinated by the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee.

 Text of the address to the committee by Martine LEVY

The NGO Day took place in the UNESCO Pavillion on the 8 December, after a presentation by the World Water Assessment Programme 10 NGOs in official partnership with UNESCO presented their work on Climate Change.

In addition a round table event was held to share the results of the 6 October Declaration Against Climate Change.

Here are some photos from the event.

The Declaration of NGO Action Day Against Climate Change is a result of a year-long work by a working group set up by the NGO-UNESCO Liaison committee as a result of the proposal made during the Conference of NGOS in 2014. The Working Group defined the topics to be addressed by this Declaration and then created an online consultation process to have a first round of feedback for the content of the Declaration. Following this an international event on the 6 October including 26 countries and 70 representatives came together to share their actions on Climate Change and also to co-construct the Declaration using a non formal education technique, ‘World Café’ which allowed the whole group to give their inputs for the declaration.

The result of this participative process is a common declaration which aims to reflect the diversity of the NGOs present and the common concerns related to Climate Change

 Text of the declaration in English

 Text of the declaration (Chinese version)

 Text of the declaration (Arab version)

You too can sign your NGO up to this declaration by using this link: http://goo.gl/forms/UoQNrYJK9P

We encourage you to share the Declaration with your networks – your members may also sign up.

Organisations who do not hold official partnership with UNESCO and who are not members of networks in official partnership with UNESCO may sign as a supporting organisation: http://goo.gl/forms/0OmOknq74U

The NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee and the COP21 Working Group will be participating in different events at Le Bourget in the Climate Generations area (Civil Society) of COP21 in order to present the Declaration and to share the work of NGOs active on Climate Change:

5 December – Climate Generations Area at 11:15-12:45 in room 8

• Round Table presenting the Common NGO Declaration 6 October 2015 against Climate Change

December 8 – NGO Day in the UNESCO Pavilion at Le Bourget in the Climate Generations area (Civil Society) of COP21 from 11:30-18:00

• NGO (in official partnership with UNESCO) presentations throughout the day
• Round Table presenting the Common NGO Declaration 6 October 2015 against Climate Change at 14:00

You can check out here the provisional Agenda

The NGO space as been organized in the heart of the public areas of the General Conference, on the ground floor of Fontenoy building – Miró 2 space.

It was both an information point and a meeting place.

Every day, different NGOS ran stands all day long and made an oral presentation of their activities

Presentations and mini-debates about the work of the General Conference or the collective work of NGOs driven by the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee were held throughout the duration of the General Conference. These debates was addressed to NGO representatives, but are also opened to other participants in the Conference.

 Provisional Programme of Activities of the NGO Space

 Programme provisoire des activités de l’espace des ONG

Members of the Liaison Committee attending the General Conference

The NGO Action day on Climate Change took place on the 6th of October 2015.

This event, organized by the NGO- UNESCO Liaison Committee and its Climate Change working group included 70 representatives of NGOs from 26 countries holding official relations with the UNESCO. The aim of the day was to unite NGOs to map, share and raise awareness about each organization’s actions on climate change and to develop a common declaration on climate change to be presented to the COP21.

Opened by Martine Levy, president of the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee and with key note speaker Peter Dogse, Co-Chair UNESCO Task Force on COP21 and Climate Change, the event saw speeches from a panel of experts :

• Renée Gerard, Former international official UNDP and UNICEF, Vice Honorary President UWE / UWE, Member of the IAW / AIF extended board, and MSc Columbia University (New York) postgraduate NYU,
• Paul Winter, activist for International Voluntary Service and legal expert , and
• Marc Delepouve, Professor of Mathematics and researcher on the relation between research and Society, Member of the Scité ( a research team of Lille University), Co-animator of the working group Democratic Energy Transition of Akademia/Transform (An European Researchers network).

They provided participants with crucial data on Climate Change and answered their questions.

The NGOs presented their organizations, networked, discussed and debated their different actions before participating in a World Café that had been prepared thanks to a survey sent out by email prior to the event. The feedback from this World Café was presented in plenary by the facilitators of each table before moving on to the reading and correcting of the common declaration.

A team of volunteers shall include the proposed corrections and it shall be published on the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee website in November.