International NGO Day by UNESCO
The NGO Liaison Committee of UNESCO organized the ‘International NGO Day’ on Monday 5th December 2011 at the UNESCO House in Paris. The programme of NGO Day focused on the ‘New Directives concerning the relationship between NGOs and UNESCO’ adopted by the 36th UNESCO General Conference (October-November 2011). Representatives of NGOs were invited to discuss the perspectives for strengthened NGO-UNESCO cooperation in the context of the new directives.
The directives provide for a re-classification of NGOs in official relations with UNESCO into two categories instead of the existing three and foresee a new composition for the Liaison Committee. WOSM is currently in formal consultative status with the UNESCO. The directives also propose that henceforward “all of the regions, as defined by UNESCO, shall be represented by at least one NGO partner having its headquarters in that region.”
In his response to the call for diversification based on the major regions of the world, Bernard Loing, the Chairperson of the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee spoke to the NGOs saying that ‘if we want to lead to a real strengthening of the NGO collective cooperation with UNESCO, together, we need to think seriously about the challenges, prepare possible scenarios, define working methods and identify the financial and human resources required’.
UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova and the Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Public Information, Eric Falt were present during the day and were actively involved in discussions with the participants. Patrick Gallaud (External Representative to UNESCO, WOSM) and Srinath Tirumale (Senior Unit Manager, External Media and External Relations, World Scout Bureau) represented WOSM at this key Conference.
To know more about the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee and its work, please click here.
To learn more about WOSM’s contribution to UNESCO’s programmes, please click here.
Download PDF version of this page
