Forus was one of the co-organisers of a day-long UnMute Civil Society Forum on Friday 8^th July during the UN HLPF, along with A4SD, GCAP and CIVICUS. The event was held in the Ford Foundation building and was supported by the UN Foundation. The purpose of the day was to explore the ways in which civil society engagement with the UN system could be significantly strengthened. Deirdre de Burca, Forus Advocacy Co-ordinator, facilitated a session during the day called “Promoting CSO Engagement with the UN System through Capacity Development and Partnerships”.

Find some highlights from the discussion below:

1. CSO Voice and Influence across UN system. Those present questioned the title of the event – “UnMute Civil Society”. Why do CSOs never hear any calls to “UnMute” Business? We need to fight for our wider sector so that it can enjoy the same kind of access and influence in UN system that the business sector does. The UNDP should play an empowering role in terms of civil society- should fight to see it better represented across all UN forums and processes. Civil society needs to fight for not just “a seat at the table” but for “many seats at many tables”. CSO representatives should be active in the discussions, forums and processes of all UN agencies, policy bodies etc. Civil society needs access to real power-  It needs the same voting rights as others in decision-making processes. It also needs to stop talking to itself and to actively participate in multi-stakeholder forums.
2. CSO Capacity Development for more effective engagement with governments and with UN system. Civil society needs to work to ensure that capacity development enhances to opportunities at national and local levels for community and grass-roots groups  and movements to engage more effectively with UN processes.  Support and mentoring should be provided for local communities– how to dialogue more effectively with governments and how to create more spaces for themselves to engage and dialogue with decision-makers
3. Civil society needs to organise itself better internally. It needs to have a convincing “pitch” for governments that explains what CSOs do, why and what the consequences are if CSOs are not listened to. There is a need for CSOs to provide evidence and data to back up their claims – governments will listen more to them if they can provide evidence for their claims. CSOs should also be supported to develop advocacy strategies for influencing local and national policy processes. They also need support to develop engagement strategies aimed at the public at large and at other sectors with whom they don’t usually work.
4. Civil society needs support to structure itself better, and to link local, national, sub-regional, regional and global levels of CSO representation. There is a lot to learn from existing structures such as the MGoS structures and regional CSO structures such as the APRCEM mechanism in Asia (which includes 17 constituency groups). There is a need for alliance building and for more collective work amongst CSOs. There needs to be greater clarity about the representativeness of civil society – who do we really represent – who can we claim to be speaking for?
5. Civil society needs to be helped to engage ordinary citizens more with the UN/multilateral system. The general public often knows little about the UN/multilateral system. The general public has little sense of “ownership”” over the UN system even though it should belong to the people. CSOs could help ordinary people to develop a better understanding of what the different UN agencies do , and what role civil society can play within UN processes.