Realwomen of BC - Archives - March2004

THE REAL NEWS The R.E.A.L WOMEN of BC Newsletter March 2004, BOX 39068, Point Grey RPO, Vancouver, BC V6R 4P1, Tel/Fax: 604- 463-1611, website: http://www.realwomen.bc.ca, e-mail: lgeschke@almatree.net Back to contents
UN/NGO Regional Network Forum Two members of REAL Women of BC, Marion Bremner of Kelowna and Laurie Geschke of Maple Ridge attended this Forum in Kelowna on February 18, 19, and 20th, 2004. This forum was organized by Hope for the Nations, (HFTN), a well established and newly-accredited NGO doing work for children and child-led households by setting up orphanages, group homes with house parents, and community centres in several countries in the 10/40 window (mostly the far east of Asia and Africa.) Hope for the Nations cites Scripture on its website, though it makes no reference to church affiliation there. While the Forum was hosted by HFTN, it was sponsored by many businesses and individuals in Kelowna, as well as the City itself. On Thursday, at a secondary site near the UN Forum there was a Youth forum set up in conjunction with the NGO Forum. All morning at our site, the two UN representatives,( Hanifa Mezoui, from Algeria, Chief NGO Section, UNDESA and Najet Karaborni, from Tunisia, Senior Inter-Regional Advisor, UN/DESA and UN/NGO Informal Regional Network (IRENE) Project Coordinator), spoke about the UN – how it works; the accreditation process; the UN hierarchy; and the MDG’s themselves. They both made it sound like we were going to accomplish great things and be listened to at the UN. At lunch and during all breaks on Thursday, there was an information table for REAL Women of Canada where we gave out brochures, the last four issues of the National Newsletter and some provincial Newsletters. Later in the afternoon, Hanifa spoke more specifically about the Canadian IRENE (Informal Regional Network of NGO’s) and our role and potential to contribute to the work of ECOSOC in implementing the MDG’s (*read provide money to the UN and it’s pet projects and pressure gov’t and private sector to do the same). At this point I felt I had uncovered the point of the UN coming to Kelowna for this new Regional (Canada is the whole “region”) entity – a way to circumvent government and go right to the beleaguered Canadian taxpayer to seek funds. I met Hanifa, and she was most excited to recognize REAL Women of Canada. (“You must be involved with the Status of Women!” she exclaimed, smiling.) I said that no, we were Canada’s Alternate Women’s Group, but she ignored that because she meant the Status of Women’s Caucus at the UN. When I realized her intentions, I smiled and nodded. On Friday morning the accredited NGO’s introduced themselves at a closed session where we were to draft a special document for presentation at a High Level Session in New York in July. Then the Youth made their presentation offering the various solutions to the problems we were all discussing the previous day. After that Hanifa spoke for the last time before leaving for Dubai, via New York. She explained that a lot of things impede the UN’s progess toward their laudable goals. They were “Hard Threats” (war) and “Soft Threats” (Natural Disasters). Nothing was mentioned about corruption, ideology, genocide, or female genital mutilation (which is practised in both their homelands.)* At that point we were broken into small groups to choose our priority issues, propose solutions and make recommendations, which seemed to be the same thing to me but nobody said anything and I didn’t want to attract attention as a trouble maker. Almost all the conclusions drawn after 3 hours of discussion and refinement would have the unfortunate effect of costing the Canadian Taxpayer billions of dollars more, vastly increasing our Gross National Debt, negatively impacting our economy, and/or increase political power of the UN over Non0Government Organizations and Nation States, thus destroying National Sovereignty. We were not happy with most of the recommendations but felt constrained to speak for two reasons – 1) We did not want to draw attention of the UN staffers; and 2) Most of the other participants sounded like they felt they were really solving the problems of the world with their heartfelt conclusions and recommendations. The NGO’s with whom we may have found a measure of rapport due to our shared philosophical worldview seemed to be neophytes at the UN and may not have appreciated our counsel and words of caution. At about 2:30, Najet took over the meeting to further summarize the summaries of the points each of the four groups had distilled into succinct phrases. The goal was to make up a 600 word document (?!) to be read in 15 minutes or less at the “High Level” Meeting in July or August 2004 in New York. I never did figure out who attends this high level meeting. During her summary, Najet added from her head that we wanted the private sector to assume responsibilities (read financial responsibilities) in the areas of conflict resolution, education and HIV/AIDS, in addition to the LDC’s and the DC governments being encouraged by the UN to take their share of the responsibilities in these areas. NOTE: The private sector was not mentioned at all by any group in conjunction with education and HIV/AIDS. At this point the people were divided into different groups, and the "strategic planning" group was pressured to come up with a strategic plan. Several delegates were forceful and vocal in their disagreement with the process. However, the group finally decided that communication was one of the most important issues and agreed to report the forum''s proceedings to all participants by mid March; to set up a data base of all accredited NGO''s in Canada by the end of April; to establish an electronic, semi-annual Newsletter; and to form a Steering Committee to recommend the structure of the Informal REgional Network (known as the IRENE); the Mission, Vision and Values Statements, and the Goals and Objectives. Hope for the Nations, which operates out of New Life Church, (a charismatic pentecostal type church), took on the responsibility of following up on these objectives – at their own expense, but under the watchful eye of the UN support staff from afar. The other group consisting of the presidents and secretaries of the four discussion groups which met earlier, presented their "decisions" which dealt with the objectives agreed to earlier in the day. However, one of the points mentioned dealt with family planning which had not been mentioned in all the discussion earlier in the day from any group.