Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, Pat Black was able to give a talk to the club at the November meeting from her home in Edinburgh. Pat is the SI Advocacy Advisor 2020 – 2021 and spends considerable amounts of time working with the SI group in Geneva. She explained the links between SI and the UN and the importance of having consultative status which interdepends on all clubs keeping their Programme Action Focus Forms up to date!
In particular she told us about being invited recently through National Alliance of Women’s Organisations (NAWO) UK, to attend a virtual consultation with NGOs and the current President of the UN Security Council, His Excellency Sven Jurgenson of Estonia.
It was a very interesting meeting attended by about 90 representatives from a wide range of non governmental organisations with consultative status at the UN. The President indicated that initially after 12 March 2020 when the UN closed its doors very little took place at the Security Council whilst they were trying to work out how to make progress during the current COVID–19 pandemic. Once they decided to work virtually it took them some time to set up secure sessions, beginning with only what was considered essential work with closed sessions. The UN has now moved to a full programme and is trying to open as many sessions as possible to include civil society. There are also side meetings happening on specific issues with NGOs included in some discussions.
As a result of the pandemic much more work is being handled on line and this means that far more members of SI can become involved by signing up to attend virtual sessions. It was very interesting to hear about all the action that takes place with the various UN agencies.