Library > Liaison Newsletter > LIAISON Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1999 - Articles

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UNA’s "Civil Society and the U.N." project
By Angus Archer, UNA-Canada, Director of Development

UNA-Canada first got involved with the Civil Society and the U.N. project in June of 1996 when Angus Archer, Director of Development at UNA-Canada met Bill White, the President of the Flint Michigan-based Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, at a CIVICUS meeting in Toronto. In 1997 we received a grant of US$30,000 to conduct a "feasibility study" on the relationship of Civil Society to the United Nation system.

The definition we have applied to "civil society" is of the third sector - after government and business - but including mass membership organizations (eg. cooperatives and trade unions) and business/trade/professional associations as well as what we currently know as non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

It will be no surprise to anyone that the feasibility study recommended an elaboration of the project into a full blown study (and a 250 page book) for use at the several world conferences on this subject being planned for late 1999 and throughout 2000. A second proposal was sent to the Mott Foundation in late 1997 and was funded in April 1998 for US$100,000.

Another significant development occurred in 1998. A steering committee of NGO representatives, originally set up by the United Nations University in Tokyo, decided to accept an offer from Canada (specifically CIDA and the Ministry of International Relations, Government of Quebec) to hold a World Conference on Civil Society in Montréal, December 8-11, 1999. The conference would invite some 500 civil society organization representatives (at least one from every member state of the UN) to convene at the Sheraton Hotel in Montréal to consider "building global governance partnerships". The book mentioned above, would be a key background document for this conference and for the Millennium Peoples Assembly in New York in August, 2000.

From left: John Foster, Editor in chief, Anita Anand and Michael McCoy, contributing editors

Three well known and representative authorities on civil society and the U.N. have agreed to spearhead the work on this project: John Foster from the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan; Michael McCoy, formerly with United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS) New York; and Anita Anand of the Women’s Press Service in New Delhi. They will work with a score of writers and readers to produce a finished product by October ‘99 in three languages, English, French and Spanish.

UNA directs the project, Harry Qualman, Michael Oliver, Geoffrey Pearson and Alan Clarke are making valuable inputs as part of the Advisory Committee. The full Advisory Committee will meet for the third time in late April in Montréal to review the various recommendations and conclusions.