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Secretary-General attends UNDEF Advisory Board Meeting

The Seventh UNDEF Advisory Board meeting was held on 28 March 2008. The Secretary-General of the United Nations attended the meeting (see the Secretary-General's statement and an article published by the UN News Centre), which is the first Board meeting of year 2008. Sixteen of 19 Board members participated in the meeting. The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss a recommended list of projects for the second round of funding.

Mr. Amir. A. Dossal, Executive Director of the Untied Nations Office for Partnerships, acted as Chair and opened the meeting. In his opening statement, Mr. Dossal welcomed all distinguished participants, and paid tribute to the work of retiring Advisory Board members who served on the Board in 2006 and 2007. Mr. Dossal introduced new Advisory Board members (an article on the retiring and new members is available at: http://www.un.org/democracyfund/XNews2008AdvisoryBoard.htm). Mr. Dossal also paid tribute to the members of the Programme Consultative Group (PCG) whose acting Chair, Mr. Craig Mokhiber of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, participated in the meeting.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations addressed the Board, stating that democracy is a process in which awareness, participation, norms and institutions need to be nurtured. He cited the experience of the Republic of Korea where people struggled to gain a strong democratic State. He encouraged UNDEF "to strengthen democracies from the grassroots up though support for innovative projects and partnerships". During his statement, he emphasized civil society and women's participation as important components in the democratic process. His statement was followed by Q and A among the Board members.

Mr. Mokhiber advised the meeting that at its meeting of 13 March 2008, the PCG discussed the role of UN agencies in the future work of UNDEF and agreed that unless administrative, political or other exigencies so require, UN agencies would not be applicants for UNDEF funds nor would they be direct implementers of UNDEF projects. The PCG considered that UN agencies could be of great assistance to UNDEF as Executing Agencies for UNDEF projects whereby they could provide helpful oversight of projects implemented by civil society organisations. In cases where UN agencies were not in a position to undertake the responsibilities of an Executing Agency, they could nevertheless act as advisors to the CSO implementers. The PCG considered this to be the best way in which the UN could coordinate and enhance its efforts with respect to UNDEF in the field.

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