Reclaim the United Nations!
A civil society workshop
Geneva, 17-19 October 2024
One year ago, in November 2023, the Geneva Global Health Hub and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation gathered representatives from organizations and social movements across diverse fields such as food, health, climate, migration, and labour rights, in a civil society retreat in Evian, by the Lake Geneva. While working in different policy spheres – international, regional, national – participants were convened to reflect on and address the state of exception that we are all confronted with, namely the shrinking space and the substantive exclusion of civil society actors from intergovernmental spaces. Over two days, participants unpacked the issue of civil society exclusion from the core of UN multilateralism despite rhetorical recognition of CSO value, from the perspective of collective and individual experiences and learnings in various UN fora. The discussion however also embraced approaches that, while not widely practised yet, could positively inter-operate with classical UN policy work: strategic litigations, critical shareholding, opinion tribunals to empower local agents for change.
The Evian retreat ignited collaboration and facilitated the exchange of current policy practices across sectors, emphasising the urgency of breaking down silos to strengthen a united space against common challenges, and threats. To consolidate the community shaped in Evian, the organisers have created a mailing list for the group to continue to reflect and exchange on respective advocacy action, campaigns, and events. Participants also agreed to hold another meeting in 2024, aimed once again at collectively envisioning HOW civil society can regain protagonism and influence at a time of international disenchantment and chaos, overcoming the “Stockholm syndrome” in the UN and multilateral processes that many of us suffer from. It is time to reclaim the UN before its jurisdiction is made completely useless.
This year, at the UN “Summit of the Future” in September 2024, member states deliberated on the “multilateralism we want.” It is a paradox that this focus on the future should de-route diplomatic attention from the escalating intractable warfare of the last two years in the world. It is a paradox that the international community engaged in negotiations for the future when at least three genocides are in full sight and unmanaged, and international hypocrisy is manifesting its full-blown colonial legacy in the way impunity is not addressed, obfuscating international law and sovereignty. The trust and cooperation crisis in multilateralism, and the splintering of intergovernmental coordination mechanisms are just the most eloquent and alarming signs that the UN represented at the Summit and its so called “Pact for the Future” is light years away from the UN we want, the UN of universal principles and rights, the UN of “WE, the people”.
The workshop
In the follow-up of the Evian retreat, the civil society workshop in October 2024 aims to deepen, among progressive civil society organizations and social movements aiming at transforming the society, a common understanding of the challenges posed by the neo-colonial dynamics within the UN system and to propose pathways towards a stronger, adequately funded, and decolonized multilateral system. It will also explore what is to be done to reclaim the rightful place of civil society in framing global policies within multilateral and the United Nations framework.
Key issues to be addressed
- Asymmetry of power and privatised states: Analysing how neo-colonial influences and the privatisation of state functions undermine democratic potentials and intergovernmental cooperation within the UN system.
- Multistakeholderism and networked multilateralism: Critiquing the current models of multistakeholderism that prioritise corporate interests under the guise of promoting social agendas and advocating for genuine civil society participation.
- Diminishing space for civil society: Examining the factors leading to the shrinking space for CSOs in UN processes and the impact on international cooperation, peace processes, human rights, and development.
- Civil Society’s role in tackling the contemporary polycrisis: Highlighting the urgent need for civil society to address the interconnected crises of our time, including climate change, peace, and human security, through a renewed multilateral approach and by getting closer to the interests and demands of citizens getting out of their comfort niches.
Objectives and expected outcomes
- Imagine our future: Identify core elements of a common global political agenda of progressive civil society organizations and social movements, potentially framed as outcome document/statement.
- Team up: Collectively explore possible joint actions, alliances, convergences related to UN processes and other international platforms where we currently have engagement and agency, and where we perceive to have capacity (power) to exercise more access/influence on decision-making.
- Organize: Towards reconstructing international solidarity and reclaiming the UN.
Documentation
The report, outcome document and documentation of the civil society workshop will be published here by November.
Organisers
- Geneva Global Health Hub
- Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Geneva office
- CETIM
- …and colleagues from other institutions
Contact for enquiries: info@g2h2.org (Alessandra Tisi and Thomas Schwarz)