189th session of the Executive Board - Committee on non-Governmental Partners

I was pleased to attend this meeting and I recognized some NGO's representatives. The Egyptian Chairperson was unable to come to Paris, so it was the Indian Permanent Delegate, Mr Singh, who was elected as Temporary Chairperson. He has presided over with authority, competence, humanity and humour. The room XI was full, a lot of NGO's were attending.
Some Members of the Delegations in the Liaison Committee made an intervention concernig the repression on civil populations in Syria, and asked for the interdiction of the Syrian Delegate to attend this Forum  : it was France, Italy, Belgium and Austria.
But the Syria was not attending.

Mr Eric Falt, ADG/ERC, representative of Mrs Bokova, thank the NGOs for their extraordinary work on the field, and expressed  Mrs Bokova's desire to reinforce the links with the civil partners and elaborate a new strategy for the new partnership. He explained the new status : 64 NGOs will be presented to the Executive Board to be admitted to an associate status ; and 283 NGOs to a consultative status.
For improving the information, it is now possible to click on "Unesco.int", for the presentation of the NGOs and for the information of the member States. A big valuable work has be done, which will help the communication between the organizations ; they will be able to present their activities to the Public. Mr Falt has explained the new challenges for UNESCO's missions : the funds are now less important, obliging the Sectors to change their Programmes and cut in the budget.
Having noted that the SAF was not on these lists to be submitted to the Executive Board, I have asked for Mrs Fatou, the secretary ....who explained that it was normal, the Fondations were not NGOs, and had another status .... which will be sent later).

Some participants noted that the criterias to define in which category the organizations were listed were not really clear ; that the geographical representation was not equal ; and they needed more transparency and information. After some questions from the representatives, Mr Olav Seim, Director of EFA Global Partnership Team, at the Education Sector,   has presented his Program, with the creation of pilot-Committee with 1 representative for regional groups. Suggestions must be sent to the Organization, and the results ready for the year 2015. The civil society must be able to make its voice louder, and  EFA must be stronger for be able to help more educational programs. An ad-hoc committee will be created for the elaboration of strategies for a more official partnership between States and civil society. UNESCO must reinforce its leadership on education. Mr Seim has recognized two failures : the quality of teaching in a lot of countries, and the equality men/women (more young girls never being sent to school).
The Chairperson presented the seven points of the decisions for the vote by the delegates attending :
The Venezuelan Permanent Delegate asked for why the organization "Reporters sans frontières", whose participation to UNESCO-NGOs was frozen for two years, was again admitted ... It seems that its work in different countries - against the state interests - was not appreciated by the Government. The Peruvian and the Chinese delegates agreed with this question.
After discussion between the Chairman, Egypt, the 3 delegations and the representative of the Director-General, it was voted that this question will be submitted to the Executive Board in the Decisions proposed, paragraphe 7 (63 NGOs instead of 64). All the other recommendations were voted by the Assembly.

The final Report will be sent after the end of the Executive Board Session.

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