By ROBYN ROSENTHAL
Michel Venne said he didn’t recognize the value of sharing ideas and experiences on a global scale until he attended his first CIVICUS World Assembly two years ago.
“You realize how it can be different for a group to work in another country like Brazil or Nigeria,” said Venne, director general of the Institut du Nouveau Monde in Montreal. “I learned a lot about the obstacles and constraints that civil society has in some countries that we don’t have here. We can learn from them, and they can learn from us if we share our experiences.”
CIVICUS’ ninth global gathering, “World Assembly: Acting Together for a Just World,” will be held Friday through Monday (Aug. 20-23) in Montreal. It will focus on topics related to economic and environmental justice.
Between 500 and 600 people, representing 86 countries, are expected to attend. Because of its location, Venne said, there are more registrants from the U.S. and Canada than in past years.
Michel Venne |
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, founded in 1993 and located in Johannesburg, South Africa, is an international network of individuals and organizations working at the local, national, regional and international levels to strengthen citizen action and civil society around the globe, especially in areas where participatory democracy and citizens' freedoms are threatened.
As one of the founding partners of CIVICUS, the Mott Foundation has provided 31 grants totaling $4.015 million for its work since 1994.
Participants at the assembly will come from three sectors of society — nonprofit, government and business — plus the media.
The Institut du Nouveau Monde, which works for justice and equality in Quebec, was selected to help CIVICUS host the assembly because of its inclusion of youth in its work and also because it offered to help coordinate the 2013 World Assembly with a French-speaking organization in Africa, Venne said.
While there has been limited attendance from French-speaking countries at past assemblies, he hopes this year’s venue in a French-speaking city encourages more long-term participation from those nations.
“I firmly believe that bringing people together from different cultures to talk and exchange is rich. It helps identify what you can do better and what are your strengths and weaknesses,” Venne said.
“If you enter into the dialogue and you’re prepared to learn, you will find that sharing with others is something that will help you to grow.”
This year’s assembly — like the most recent one in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2008 — will include more young people, primarily because a youth assembly is being held prior to the main assembly from Aug. 18-20 in Montreal. About 100 are expected to attend the event.
Margaret Fish |
That gathering is focusing on the same theme, said Margaret Fish, CIVICUS World Assembly manager. She said the youth assembly findings will be presented at the larger world assembly.
“They had a youth assembly in 2008 and it made a huge difference in the energy and alternative thinking,” Fish said. Phone-in radio interviews and blogs also will be a part of this year’s youth gathering.
An ongoing topic around the world has been the governmental and private sector cuts in funding to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) due to struggling economies, she said. Reduced income has had devastating effects on NGOs’ work in several areas, but environmental work has been especially hard hit.
“It is more critical than ever before to get together and talk about how the economy is impacting society,” Fish said.
Guest speakers will include Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty International; Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International and former CIVICUS secretary general; and Otaviano Canuto, vice president for the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network at the World Bank.
The world assembly has become increasingly important since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S., Fish said, because it gives people a platform to discuss openly repression of human rights internationally.
“Nine-eleven changed the world. A lot of repressive regimes are clamping down on civil society and using 9-11 as an excuse,” she said.
“Where human rights are an issue, and where people are trying to change the status quo, they’re being repressed, tortured, intimidated and locked up.”
In response, the world assembly publicly honors people who have been imprisoned for working to build a strong civil society, Fish said, adding that several will be acknowledged this year as well. The event also has featured freed prisoners as guest speakers.
The 2010 format is designed to encourage more participation and likely will generate potential solutions to pressing problems, she said. In addition to the plenary sessions that feature invited guests in a roundtable discussion, there will be 32 workshops to stimulate input from everyone in attendance.
“I think it’s useful to have different kinds of sessions,” Fish said. “When people don’t feel comfortable in traditional sessions, they are more likely to participate in workshops and interactive formats. It provides some variety for everybody. Hopefully, there’s more interaction and more participation and, hopefully, more ideas come out of it.”
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