In an era of rapid globalization, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) increasingly operate in a global policy environment. Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders, Oxfam, Greenpeace, and many others, seek to influence the great international decisions of the day. So they need to interact with global institutions. They want to participate in the process where policies are decided. The United Nations, the main global policy body, has been unusually open to NGO input over the years.
Nation states are usually the decision-makers, but NGOs seek “access” to information and to those that make the decisions. This can mean many things. NGO representatives want physical access to the conference halls where official meetings take place, so that they can observe, interact with delegates and monitor proceedings. NGO representatives/Ambassadors want to circulate their own documents, to speak to meetings, to have access to documents and to gain entry to informal, preparatory meetings and the like. NGOs also want access to administrative offices in the Secretariat and other agencies, and the right to be consulted in the administration’s policy-formulation and policy-implementation process. In some (rare) cases, NGOs aspire to official voting status in the decision-making process itself, as is the case in the International Labour Organisation.
Given the diverse nature and large number of NGOs, relations between NGOs and the UN have at times been stormy. NGOs face a constant battle to be heard at the UN, and often must compete with businesses and other private sector organizations toward which the UN is increasingly friendly. While some NGOs enjoy excellent access to meetings and good relations with UN officials and delegations, governments sometimes react negatively to NGO advocacy and seek to restrict NGO opportunities. Access has long been at the forefront of NGOs’ struggle at the UN, especially in attempts to gain consultative status in UN bodies or the right to view UN documents through the Official Document System.
At the United Nations, NGOs have had some access from the beginning. But recently those rules of access have seemed outmoded and in need of change. NGO importance soared with the global conferences of the 1990s, especially the great environmental conference at Rio in 1992, with over ten thousand NGO representatives participating. Never before had NGOs been so prominent, so full of energy and ideas, and so central to the intergovernmental negotiating process. Subsequent conferences in Vienna (1993), Cairo (1994), Copenhagen (1995) and Beijing (1996) confirmed this new level of NGO dynamism and influence. The UN and its agencies also began to subcontract many services directly to NGOs — including provision of emergency relief, demining, reconstruction, governance training and more — further magnifying NGO status.
The Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationships with United Nations
CoNGO’s mission is to facilitate the participation of NGOs in the UN system. Working to ensure that NGOs have adequate access to UN meetings, conferences, special events, and documentation is a central CoNGO activity. The UN-NGO relationship has been evolving and changing since the signing of the UN Charter in 1945. The issue of NGO Access to the UN has at times been under great scrutiny and debate, especially within the past several years. CoNGO’s mission is to ensure the free exchange of ideas among all parties at the United Nations, by defending and upholding the rights of NGOs, based on the UN Charter, to voice their concerns.
NGOs played an essential role in the discussions leading to the founding of the United Nations, and the United Nations Charter itself made provision for formal participation of NGOs through the mechanism of consultative status granted through the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). From the beginning, a combination of independence from, engagement with and support for the United Nations has been the hallmark of CoNGO.
CoNGO has drafted a voluntary “code of conduct” for NGOs as well as a draft set of ”Rules and Procedure for NGO Participation at UN Conferences.”
CoNGO is an active member of the NGO Working Group on UN-NGO Relations that brings together key NGO representatives based at UN headquarters. The Working Group was founded in 2009 and advocates for a positive and open partnership between the United Nations and NGOs, addressing issues such as the accreditation process, NGO participation in UN meetings and conferences, and physical access to the Headquarters complex. CoNGO convenes NGO meetings on access issues at the UN offices in Geneva and Vienna and follows closely the relevant developments at other UN centres throughout the world, as well as in relation to UN Summits and major conferences.