Media Advisory : African Civil Society Forum to be held on Achieving the MDGs

21 March 2007

The Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO) and the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), and their partners, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Union (AU) are organizing the African Civil Society Forum 2007 to be held from 22-24 March 2007 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The organization of this Forum in Africa comes at a critical time and within the context of the recent shifts in the global development agenda and the need strengthen governance mechanisms to meet the challenge of attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A key condition for meeting the MDGs by the set timeframe of 2015 is the strong involvement of African civil society.

This Forum will be a unique opportunity for representatives of national, regional and international NGOs from Africa to explore the most effective ways of working with the United Nations system and partnering with African institutions, such as the AU (including with and through ECOSOCC). Participants will participate in workshops and parallel events focused on producing concrete recommendations for the Ministerial Declaration of the UN ECOSOC High-Level Segment in July 2007.

As part of the Forum, ECA will convene a range of stakeholders for the first meeting of the African Regional Network of the UN Global Alliance for ICTs (GAID) whose mission is to contribute to transforming the spirit and vision of the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) into action and promoting the use of ICT for achieving the MDGs.

While keeping a flexible bottom-up approach for NGOs to express their views, well-known speakers will address the debate with a focus on sustainable development and MDGs, giving full visibility to the progress made in UN/NGO partnerships and to the issue of democratizing governance at the regional and global level.

CONGO is an independent, international, not-for-profit membership association of nongovernmental organizations that facilitates the participation of NGOs in United Nations debates and decisions.

For more on CONGO's diverse activities and Forum updates, please vist: http://www.ngocongo.org/