The NGO Working Group on UN-NGO Relations regularly communicates with UN officials, including the Secretary General, on key NGO access issues. The UN Capital Master Plan, a major five year renovation of the UN Headquarters, has been a particular focus of the working group. There has been limited consultation of NGOs in the planning, and the working group has advocated greater inclusion to ensure that the renovations do not result in reduced physical access for NGOs. In addition to campaigns to address issues of physical access at the UN, the working group has also communicated with UN officials on the political environment for NGOs at the UN. Most importantly, the working group wants to ensure that statements by the Secretary General attesting to the importance of a partnership between the UN and NGOs are more than mere rhetoric. The working group campaigns for closer participation of NGOs in deliberation on issues of global concern. NGO participation must be meaningful, and not simply an afterthought in the decision-making process.
NGOs and the UN Capital Master Plan (October 4, 2011)
The NGO Working Group on UN Access sent a letter to the Michael Adlerstein, the Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the UN Capital Master Plan. The letter highlights the significant role that NGOs play at the UN and the many ways NGOs utilize space at the UN campus. The Working Group calls upon the Capital Master Plan to provide adequate space for NGO activities, minimize physical barriers to NGO access, and continue to provide an NGO Resource Center.
Letter to the Secretary General Ban Ki -moon from the NGO Working Group on UN Access(January 18, 2011)
The NGO Working Group on UN Access, of which Global Policy Forum is a co-convenor, sent a letter to the Secretary General on improving NGO access at the UN. The letter highlighted a number of serious access problems. The Working Group is particularly concerned with ensuring NGO-UN consultation on matters that affect the NGO community – on the basis of the principle “Nothing about us without us!”
Letter to the NGO Working Group on UN Access from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (March 30, 2010)
Global Policy Forum and partners have recently received a letter from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the topic of NGO access to the UN. The SG was responding to a letter from the NGO Working Group on UN Access - of which Global Policy Forum Director Jim Paul is co-convener - highlighting the erosion of NGO access and proposing solutions. Ban's letter was brief and very low in content. It did nothing to dispel the NGO community's worries about being cold shouldered, at a time when the Capital Master Plan for UN renovation is reducing space for NGO activity and providing a handy excuse for exclusion.
