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Civil Society: NGOs

Ideas without power. Power without ideas. Something like that pervades NGO-Multigovernment relations at the UN. A gross oversimplification, no doubt, but not a bad frame for analysis and discussion. NGO's can say: we have ideas, fresh ideas, we are committed, we care: this is what must be done. Government officials can say (if they are permitted to speak): you are naive, we have tried, it won't work. Write your variations on the script. NGO's are as multifarious as are governments, they have been known to fight among themselves, not only with governments. Still and all, we are talking democracy, vox populi, a constant challenge to entrenched power. "Civil society", citizens variously organized, bring health to the UN as they check and prod.

The new UN management speaks welcome. Their text seems to have been lifted from the 1995 report of the Commission on Global Governance. The Secretary-General's Reform paper has an important section on Civil Society: "Public participation in world events, especially the major conferences convened by the United Nations in the 1990's, has acquired true meaning, with tens of thousands of organizations from around the world being involved, from the local to the global level, in the identification of priorities and issues and avenues for addressing them." The Secretary-General can't tell intergovernmental bodies how to relate to their citizens, but he can instruct his own staff. His reforms include, in his words:

A series of gatherings involving eminent leaders of different sectors of civil society and the Secretary-General will be initiated. Constituencies will include academicians, organized labour, non-governmental organizations, private business, youth and the foundation community.

All substantive departments of the United Nations will designate a non-governmental organization liaison officer to facilitate access by civil society to the United Nations. At the country level, where appropriate, the United Nations system should create more opportunities for tripartite cooperation with Governments and civil society. Training programmes for United Nations staff will include a component dedicated to cooperation with civil society. This will be reflected in the curricula of the United Nations Staff College.

Consonant with his trip to Davos, the Secretary-General will try to bring big business-- why is it called "the private sector"?-- into better harmony with the UN. He will work on a better way "for continuing dialogue between representatives of business and the United Nations." Even Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, speaks of "integration of civil society" as he plans a Conference on Partners for Development in November 1998. Ted Turner and beyond!

On the UN political stage, the big innovation would be a "People's Assembly", as a companion to the G.A. "Millennium Assembly" of governments, proposed by the Secretary-General for the year 2000. So far, the G.A. is non-committal on this. Tell us more, they have said. To make a "People's Assembly" come off would be a critical test for NGO's.

Meantime, NGO's are inching their way into intergovernment consultations. Doors to general meetings have not been flung wide open, but even the Security Council has invited NGO's to participate in its review of the humanitarian dimension of peacekeeping. The decisive contribution of the NGO network to the banning of land mines got Nobel headlines. And another powerful NGO network has been welcomed into the preparations for an International Criminal Court.