1. I have completed 856 days (73%) of the Presidential Mandate for 2011-2014 that the CoNGO General Assembly generously conferred on me in January 2011. It has been, as I anticipated in my acceptance speech, an ”exhilarating" period, and the challenges but also the joys will surely continue during the remaining 27% ! Building from the several Presidential Messages that I have already sent to Members, as well as from the many Presidential Briefings I have given in Geneva, New York and Vienna, allow me to run over some of the recent and ever-current aspects of the work that CoNGO is involved in in service to its members.
   
   

2. CoNGO focusses heavily on”fostering cooperation and dialogue among all NGOs and with groupings of NGOs related to the UN System" and on ”strengthening...the contributions which NGOs can make to promoting the principles, purposes and effectiveness of the UN and its related agencies and programmes" (quotes from CoNGO Rule 2). This a constant preoccupation of the CoNGO President, Officers and Secretariat, involving often-daily presence and advocacy at many levels of the UN System (Conferences, Commissions, Secretariats and Departments, not to forget Missions and delegates. My constant leitmotif is that competent, responsible and grass-roots based NGO/Civil Society input to the UN deliberative and decision-making processes can only enhance the intergovernmental output that comes in the form of resolutions, declarations, programmes of action and also on occasion Treaties and Conventions. Our individual and collective inputs are of course welcomed verbally by UN Officials and many governments, but we have to be constantly alert to ”weak reception" of our messages and to covert attempts on the part of some to diminish or circumscribe the space open to civil society. CoNGO's interventions are usually discreet, as befits the atmosphere and practices of the Great Diplomatic Machine, but they are focussed and timely.
   
   

3. Our "front-line soldiers" in relations with the UN System are of course the CoNGO Substantive Committees which”promote and facilitate collective work among NGOs on substantive issues related to programmes, policies and activities of the United Nations System." (CoNGO Rule 38) I express thanks to those Substantive Committees in all three UN Centers (Geneva, New York, Vienna) that have worked tirelessly and imaginatively to influence UN deliberations and decision-making, and I encourage CoNGO member organizations not already involved in Substantive Committees to join one or more that are relevant to your spheres of programmes and interests. Acting collectively we are invariably stronger in getting our messages heard, understood and acted on.
   
   

4. Following the 2011 CoNGO Assembly decision on seeking ways to strengthen the functioning and effectiveness of Substantive Committees, a Board Working Group has been meeting, researching and analysing this field over the past two years, with major leadership inputs and time and other resources being generously provided by Board Member Fairleigh Dickinson University. The Working Group presented its findings to the CoNGO Board in

   April, and as a result of decisions made, a series of proposals will be on the agenda of the next Board session (Vienna, October 16,17,18, 2013). Those adopted will be communicated to Members: some will require amendments to the Rules, and these will be circulated in timely manner. Our underlying hope and aspiration is that all Substantive Committees reach optimal”critical-mass” levels of representativity, effectiveness, outreach and influence.
   
   

5. One UN System-wide concern that is relevant to all Substantive Committees, and indeed to all of us, is the process leading to the drawing up of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The process itself is highly complicated, involving many political, professional, scientific, technical and communications modalities and mechanisms. Civil society engagement in the process is multi-facetted, intense on several levels yet diffuse and dispersed on others. Building on our success in offering a Communications Service for the UNCSD (Rio+20) in 2012, we shall be renewing this service in regard to the Post-2015 Agenda, seeking to ensure that the entire constituency is informed as to where to go to get the information each member organization needs, and as to which of the many many civil society networks working on Post-2015 will be most relevant to each member organization’s concerns. The Post-2015 Agenda provides an unmatched opportunity for working TOGETHER.
   
   

6. I need however to also communicate with you on some CoNGO internal matters. You will recall that the year 2011 was devoted to a (highly-successful) turnaround of the financial situation as it stood in January 2011, such that we ended that year with a small surplus. However we lost ground significantly in 2012, and once more had a number of unmet bills at the end of that year. Apart from the fact that we now no longer have any external governmental subvention, the simple reason for the downturn in our finances is that membership income was well below expectations. When only 50% of member organizations pay their membership dues, it is impossible for the Secretariat to function adequately, even counting the oceans of volunteer time devoted by Officers, Consultants and Interns. We no longer have any full-time staff member, following the forced departure for financial reasons of the invaluable Beatriz Schulthess, and our services are consequently greatly slowed down. Our part-time Consultants/Accountants, Staci Alziebler in New York and Sabine Cazenave in Geneva, merit immense thanks for keeping our basic mechanisms functioning. And I am delighted that we have secured several competent volunteer Interns: Catherine Gauthier from the University of Sherbrooke, who will work from her University base specifically on the Post-2015 Communications mentioned above; Johana Alarcon of Farleigh Dickenson University who is in the New York Office; Taeyoung Kim of Kyung Hee University and Adriana Seefried of the University of Bayreuth, both of them in the Geneva Office. My deep thanks to them all for their contributions to the functioning and outreach of CoNGO.
   
   

7. I would like particularly to inform you that one of the interns, Taeyoung Kim,will be responsible for reactivating the CoNGO email newsletter, on at least a monthly basis. He will shortly himself send you a message setting out what is expected and required. Please respond directly to the communication you will receive from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
   
   

8. I hardly need to say once more that providing all CoNGO services, maintaining offices and presence at UN and NGO meetings, and reaching out to our immediate and related constituencies ALL REQUIRES MONEY! While Board members work on translating their good fundraising intentions into results, CoNGO is essentially 100% dependent on the membership dues. All members received the appropriate 2013 invoice during the first three months of the year, and we are now at the end of the fifth month. To date less than a quarter of members have paid for 2013 (and of course some are still unpaid for 2012, despite reminders). Frankly speaking, this is an untenable situation, for even 24-hour volunteer services will not suffice. Without income we cannot pay our bills. I therefore once more launch an urgent appeal to EVERY member which has not yet paid for 2013 to do so in the next days. It is your organization: it is you who will make it work by fulfilling your duty to pay the membership fees. You will also hear on this subject from the new CoNGO Treasurer, the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW), which is represented by Elizabeth Benham, Immediate Past President of BPW. I heartily thank BPW and Liz Benham for taking on this essential task with competence and dedication.
   
   

9. And please let us know if you change your address or the email address to which invoices should be sent. We lose many hours in searching for the right addresses when invoices are returned as undeliverable.
   
   

10. I close this Presidential message by returning to a matter of principle (although of course paying one's statutory dues is also a matter of principle!). The different processes leading to the CoNGO General Assembly in April 2014 are now getting under way. We will need to work constantly together in coming months to prepare a solid Assembly programme that will enable us to do all our statutory business and to have in-depth discussions that will shape and undergird our collective future. I shall count on your responsible input and your solidarity, and I thank you in advance for coming TOGETHER.

Cyril Ritchie, President of CoNGO