Some 4000 NGO representatives are meeting May 9-10 at the UN Environmental Programme Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya for the 2024 UN Civil Society Conference.
The focus of the meeting is to prepare ideas and strategies for the UN Summit for the Future which will be held in New York 22-23 September 2024, to which many governmental leaders are expected.
In this period when there are many tensions and much mistrust among governments, there are real possibilities that governmental negotiations for a Summit declaration will be paralyzed. Thus NGO representatives want to develop a spirit of trust and solidarity. The NGOs represent a diverse array of voices. However of the some 4000 participants registered, some 2800 come from Africa, 436 from Asia-Pacific, and only 56 from Eastern Europe whose attention must be on the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict.
It is likely that the consequences of climate change will be high on the list of issues discussed. One proposition which has been often made but never acted upon is to transform the UN Environment Programme into a UN Specialized Agency like UNESCO to become a Global Environmental Agency. There are also proposals for strengthening world law, especially the role of the International Court of Justice.
Many issues today are complex and interlinked. There is a tendency among both governments and UN-related NGOs to make "shopping lists" of issues to be considered rather than to analyse the way the issues are interlinked. A report and an outcome document of the Civil Society Conference should be presented at the end of May in New York. A close reading is merited.
René Wadlow, Association of World Citizens
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