Summary: Working Group on Civil Society and International Organizations Cooperation

Reaching out to people: access to UN information

In this session, speakers discussed how to strengthen the relationship between civil society and international organizations. Several speakers mentioned the importance of communications and the role media could play in this link. 

Ms. Hamouda Kadjar of Féderation Internationale de Terre des Hommes presented the results of the Campaign “Child Soldiers” and her experience with respect to working with other NGOs and the UN system towards the successful end of this campaign. She pointed out that the campaign dealt with an issue that was relatively easy to visualize, allowing a strong message. She also underlined that the synergy created at international and national levels added to the collaborative effort between UN agencies, NGOs and Governments, resulting in an efficient collaboration. It allowed the combination of resources and contacts and resulted in a program that was State supported and involved a broad range of actors. 

During his intervention, Mr. Ricardo Espinosa of International Labour Organization provided examples on how to capture public attention, resulting in successful campaigns, such as "Unidos contra la Pobreza" and “Expulse Children Labour”. He mentioned that these campaigns were well-designed and had an important impact because they were based on a partnership between multiple actors, including the UN system. When communicating a message, mass media played an important role. Mr. Espinosa stressed that such campaigns needed to take into account the cultural differences and the different contexts, in order to reach the public and inform civil society regarding certain issue. 

Ms. Marie Heuzé, Head of the Department of Public Information said that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had stressed the importance of sharing information with the public. She underlined that two lines of communication were necessary: one to communicate what people expect and another to answer and canalise information. Often, the UN acts as an intermediary body linking the local Media to local projects all over the world. Ms. Heuzé further mentioned that in addition to information regarding local projects, the Media also needed to inform about issues raised within the UN system itself, as well as with respect to collaborations between the UN and NGOs.

Chair, Mr. Sébastien Ziegler, concluded by pointing out that one of the WCSF’s goals was precisely to promote the cooperation between NGOs, UN agencies, the private sector, in order to build a wide network of actors who can contribute to an effective system of communication and cooperation.

Interesting questions
All the questions were linked to technical issues. The need to share knowledge was stressed as well as the question on how to better link the work done between agencies and countries.

Conclusions
Through the reform carried out by Kofi Annan, a more decentralized system enables various departments and agencies to find effective means to communicate.

Much still remains to be done, but the Internet has facilitated communication, providing those who are technology literate to access online reports, agendas, yearbooks, etc. published by various UN agencies. 

Presenters' Documents Available

17.19_espinosa_ricardo.doc (45 K)
17.19_hamouda_eylah_kadjar.ppt (83 K)

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