INTERNATIONAL POLICY DIALOGUE
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

The Implementation Process

27 -28 June 2002
Berlin , Germany

Issue Note by
Renate D. Bloem, President
Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in
Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO)

Introduction

On behalf of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO) I would like to thank the organizers for their kind invitation to let us participate in this important Dialogue.

Let me say at the outset that rarely have we seen so much consensus within the whole United Nations system in rallying around a particular theme as currently when we hear -at least as expressions of intent- to support the Millennium principles in general, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in particular. No UN Conference or PrepCom, ILO or WHO Assembly ends without specifically focussing on these goals. For this achievement alone to coordinate efforts for this purpose within the entire UN family I would like to praise the Secretary General and his moral authority behind this and UNDP for having achieved that much progress in its current campaign for awareness raising to mobilize at least the UN (official) opinion.

However, as soon as we step out of the UN environment, into the world (the real world) of civil society, we do not yet find this awareness, much less concerted efforts for implementing any of these goals. What we do find is very often general scepticism regarding the implementation of past commitments.
The challenge therefore before us is to articulate convincingly that the MDGs which target the most crucial issues of our time, namely poverty reduction, health, education, gender and environment through their time bound measures and partnership ideas will help us also to implement the essentials of most of the past commitments.

CONGO and the Millennium Summit

Civil society organizations have given a substantial input into the formulation and adoption by the General Assembly of the Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals (September 2000).
On 22 - 26th May 2000, CONGO, together with NGO/ DPI Executive Committee and other NGO partners organized the Millennium Forum, which helped to pave the way to the adoption by the 55th General Assembly of the above-mentioned Millennium Declaration and MDGs .

The targets of the two declarations - the one adopted by NGOs in May and the one adopted by the General Assembly in September - overlap to a great extent and are very much convergent in spirit. This shows that the 189 heads of state and government acknowledged the quality of the contribution by representatives of over 1350 NGOs and capitalized upon their commitments. What is commonly known as the "Millennium Summit" - NGO Forum and inter-governmental Assembly - is a very good example of a constructive and mutually benefiting partnership between the UN and civil society.

For those who may not be familiar with CONGO: it is an umbrella association of some 400 organizations in consultative relationship with the UN. It was founded in 1948 in order to safeguard, promote and facilitate the participation of NGOs in UN activities. This participation has become more important in recent years, particularly with the commitment of the Secretary General to establish a true partnership with civil society, "We the Peoples…" CONGO's goal is to strengthen and help to democratize the United Nations system contributing thereby to the achievement of global democratic governance.

As CONGO was one of the main conveners of the Millennium Forum, I would like to expose here the commitments taken by the NGO community in the Millennium Forum Declaration and Agenda for Action. And next present some follow-up and implementation initiatives CONGO has already taken and is about to organize.

A new element in the Forum's Agenda for Action is that it assigns very specific tasks to the three main actors for development: - the United Nations, governments and civil society. They are the following:

· Eradicate poverty, including social development and debt cancellation
· Promote peace, security and disarmament
· Face the challenges of globalization: equity, justice and diversity
· Promote and protect human rights
· Promote a sustainable development and environment
· Strengthen and democratize the UN and international organizations

Hereafter, I will present only the ones defined for civil society, as this is CONGO's perspective. Generally speaking, NGOs are called upon to continue their lobbying and advocacy activities towards governments and the awareness raising of public opinion.

Additionally, under the first target - eradication of poverty, including social development and debt declaration - civil society is urged to develop new partnerships that empower the poor and to dedicate special attention to the needs of youth and the elderly.

Under the second target - peace, security and disarmament -, the Forum again urges civil society to devote special attention to the needs of the young and the elderly, to protect humanitarian principles and to maintain the impartiality of NGOs.

Under the third target - facing the challenge of globalization: equity, justice and diversity - the Forum urges civil society to support a concept of globalization defined from a justice, polycentric and pluri-cultural perspective.

Under the fourth target - human rights - the Forum calls upon civil society to effectively realize the right to development with special reference to the immediate cancellation of poor country debt and to encourage states to sign and ratify the International Criminal Court treaty.

Under the fifth target - sustainable development and environment - the Forum urges civil society to share best practices in the area of sustainable and social development and to adopt and disseminate the Earth Charter.

Under the sixth and last target - strengthening and democratizing the UN and international organizations - the Forum urges civil society to support the creation and funding of a Global Civil Society Forum to meet at least every two to three years.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

The MDGs are a further achievement of the international community. Even though these goals are not new, they are the product of a cristallization process that has mainly taken place during the '90s, when for the first time governments and civil society were able to shape a common global agenda. However, what is new, is that governments have committed themselves to achieve the MDGs by 2015 and have set very precise and measurable indicators to monitor their implementation progress. Even though these commitments are not binding under international (treaty) law, the simple fact that 189 governments have signed this landmark document is of historic dimension. NGOs have to be the "moral conscience" of governments and keep reminding them of the commitments they have taken in this historic moment.

CONGO as one of the main civil society initiators of this whole process, is very active in its monitoring and implementation. Through our substantive committees and working groups, we are traditionally one of main UN counterparts for NGOs working in the fields of human rights, gender, ageing, development, disarmament, peace, health, etc.
Additionally, in the year 2000 (just prior to the Summit) CONGO contributed substantially to the "Bejing + 5" process, by serving as the Secretariat for the International NGO Coordinating Committee for the PrepCom and the Special Session. To be mentioned is the formation of a Subcommittee on Alternatives Reports, which solicited and received 115 alternative NGO reports from 59 countries, edited them and made the report available at the time of the Special Session as the NGO Alternative Report on Bejing + Five. The Special Session reaffirmed that there would be no going back on the Bejing Platform for Action and it strengthened such areas of focus as violence against women, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, globalization and poverty and it provided new benchmarks against which NGOs can work and assess the progress made by themselves, their governments and their societies. As you see, these targets are all to be found among the Millennium Summit commitments.

CONGO's Road Map for Implementation - Outreach

· Focus on Africa

For the year 2001, following the recommendations of the Millennium Declaration, CONGO decided to put the spotlight on Africa and focus its activities on African NGOs. CONGO helped to initiatiate a process to have African NGOs - in particular African women's voices - heard during a series of roundtables/panel discussions on topics such as sustainable development, gender, HIV/AIDS, armed conflicts and women as peace brokers, as well as on racism. The objective was to give high visibility to the work done by African NGOs at local and regional level and, in keeping the Beijing + 5 agenda alive, to collect their recommendations for input into UN deliberations, including into the ECOSOC High-level Segment on "African Sustainable Development" and the Durban Conference against Racism.

We have also become a partner to the NGO Section of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs in the recent establishment of the Informal NGO Regional Network. (IRENE) The African network was launched in January in Tunis.

· Focus on Asia

Today, in 2002, two years after the adoption of the Millennium Forum Agenda for Action and of the MDGs, CONGO is working towards the carrying forward of these commitments to the broader NGO community around the world. We are now in the process of preparing the "Asian Civil Society Forum" (ACSF 2002) on the theme: UN/NGO Partnership for Democratic Governance, to be held in Bangkok on 9th - 13th December 2002. This important regional civil society event will be co-sponsored by ESCAP, receive technical input from regional UN Agencies and will be attended by local, national, regional and international NGOs, precisely to encourage them to contribute to the achievement of the whole set of commitments. Capacity building w-shops will underscore this effort. The Forum will offer also an opportunity to expand the UNDP Campaign on awareness raising of the MDGs. Through the focus on Human Rights and Sustainable Development (with the immediate follow-up on the World Summit on Sustainable Development, 26 Aug- 04 Sept) we want to create a "snow-ball effect" by integrating past experiences to nurture present endeavours. We invite UNDP and other partners to actively support and co-sponsor this event.

Another important upcoming world conference - the World Summit on Information Society (Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005) - will also be given special attention on the agenda of the Asian Civil Society Forum, to make NGOs aware of their possibilities of participation and contribution.

· Focus on Latin America and Eastern Europe

Such regional consultations will go on. We plan to follow-up on previous meetings we already held in Africa (Kampala 1998 and Tunis 2002) and to organize others in Latin America and Eastern Europe next year. The CONGO Board, held last week in Geneva, has just given green light to go in that direction..

World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD), Johannesburg

We want to highlight this roadmap at the upcoming Summit in Johannesburg and support UNDP in making MDGs a primary focus at the Summit.

ECOSOC and MDGs

I would finally mention that CONGO has been involved in facilitating NGO input into the High Level Segments of ECOSOC. Last year, we organized the first ever held NGO Forum to this segment. (The idea was borne here at one of the Global Dialogues) The success of this Forum resulted in its institutionalisation. This year, it has just been held on Resources, Health and Education and recommendations are in the process to be finalized.

In addition, we have been invited to intervene this year on " Strengthening ECOSOC" during its coordination segment. We held two NGO meetings in New York and Geneva to receive their recommendations. As to follow-up and monitoring MDGs I would like to hear from participants here, in particular from UNDP as "scorekeeper" and "campaign manager", how you see the follow up process most effectively carried out.

Conclusion

The monitoring of the implementation of the commitments taken at the Millennium Summit and of the MDGs is an important duty assigned to civil society. In our capacity of umbrella association of NGOs in consultative relationship with the United Nations, we try to catalyse the concerns of the NGO community and to have them heard at the UN level. We hope thereby to give our contribution to the realization of the vision that "we the peoples…", shaped at the Millennium Forum, will become a reality: a world that is human-centered and genuinely democratic, where all human beings are full participants and enabled/empowered to determine their own destinies.