ACHRS delegation attended CoNGO General Assembly in Geneva
From the 1st to the 3rd of March a delegation of the Amman Center for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS) took part in the General Assembly of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in consultative relations with the United Nations (CoNGO), which took place in Geneva, Switzerland.
The ACHRS delegation was composed by Dr. Nizam Assaf, the founder and director of the center, Mr. Danny Casprini, project consultant and coordinator of the International Relations Unit at ACHRS, Mr. Morten Hansen and Jeppe Køster, former interns and actual consultant for the center.
The topic of the General Assembly was “Challenges Today and Tomorrow Towards Agenda 2030 – NGOs and United Nations Together”. The first day the conference was held at the Centre International de Conférences de Genève, while the following two days it took place at the International John Knox Center. The first session of the conference was dedicated to celebrate the 70th anniversary of CoNGO and its achievements, featuring a performance by the Theatre of Transformation titled “Shared Human Values to Enact Collective Transformation”. Throughout the performance the actress, supported by a musician who recreated symbolic atmospheres from all over the world, told the audience success stories collected throughout the travel and project in which they participated and showing how NGOs intervention all over the world has been successful in supporting development of local initiatives.
All the other sessions presented administrative issues and gave enough space for reports from the President Cyril Ritchie, the First Vice President Soon-Young Yoon, the Vice President Vienna Wolfgang Beiglboeck, as well as the treasurer Elizabeth Benham. They all highlighted the situation of CoNGO during the past triennium highlighting success and achievements as well as downfalls to be fixed for the future. Furthermore the board reported on the activities carried out in the past triennium in terms of advocacy, taking into account also the successes of the regional and substantive committees and paving the way towards agenda 2030, in terms of support to Sustainable Development Goals implementation and network creations among NGOs involved within CoNGO. In particular, the Assembly discussed on the need to lobby with the United Nations General Assembly 5th Committee on Budget to not operate further reduction to UN budget for next year.
Following this, the Assembly adopted some amendments to the CoNGO rules as regard the repeal of the distinction between First Vice President and Vice President Vienna in a way of having two Vice Presidents serving in their personal capacity and coming from the two seats different form the one of the President. The last day was reserved to elections of the future President and the Board. The President appointed for the upcoming triennium is Liberato C. Bautista, Assistant General Secretary for United Nations and International Affairs at the General Board of Church and Society, immediate past president of the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations (2015-2017) and former president of CoNGO for the period 2007-2010.
We are glad to announce that Amman Center for Human Rights Studies has been elected to the Board for the second mandate in a row. We are looking forward to cooperate with the new appointed President and with the rest of the Board members for the triennium 2018-2020.
