By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 25 --
The UN will be
hosting
non-governmental
organizations
from all over
the world this
week, for the
65th
Annual United
Nations
DPI/NGO
Conference
from August 27
to 29. But
what does the
UN do to
defend and
ensure access
for NGOs?
At a
UN press
conference on
August 25,
Inner City
Press put
these and
other
questions to
Maher Nasser,
the Acting
Head of the UN
Department of
Public
Information. Video here and embedded below.
Earlier this
summer, for
example, the
government of
Sri Lanka
ordered NGOs
to stop
holding press
conferences or
otherwise
interacting
with the
media. Click
here for that.
Inner
City Press
asked Nasser
what the UN,
whose UN
Information
Center in
Colombo has
been promoting
this week's
New York
conference,
actually does
for NGOs in
Sri Lanka amid
this
crackdown.
Nasser cited
UNESCO and the
UN's human
rights
entities.
Given
the UN's
troubling
silence in Sri
Lanka amid
mass killings
in 2009, which
has given rise
to Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
“Rights Up
Front”
initiative,
perhaps DPI
where
applicable
should speak
up on such
restrictions
put on NGOs.
The Free UN Coalition for Access, on whose
behalf Inner
City Press
thanked Nasser
and the other
panelist for
the briefing,
has since its
inception
received
complaints not
only on
media-related
abuses but
also
restrictions
on access for
civil society.
Nasser said
the upcoming
conference is
about the
Post-2015
Development
theme, but
that a sub
committee
exists on NGO
access issues.
We hope to
have more on
this.
Inner
City Press
asked panelist
Galina
Angarova to
expound on her
too-rare for
the UN Press
Briefing Room
questioning of
the public -
private
partnership in
which the UN
increasingly
engages. She
said oversight
and
accountability
are necessary.
An
example we're
raised is
placing the
chairperson of
Bank of
America, the
number one
funder of
mountain-top
removal coal
mining, on the
UN's
Sustainable
Energy for All
initiative,
and then
refusing at
times to even
take questions
about it.
There are and
will be other
examples. We
will be
covering the
DPI-NGO
conference:
watch this
site.
Footnote:
Nasser
was asked
about the UN
eliminating,
or
consolidating,
the post of
the chief of
the NGO
section, a
topic on which
we've
previously
reported.
Nasser cited
the three
percent budget
cut, and the
work of the
new overseer
of NGOs (and
also of
advocacy). We
may have more
on this as
well.
, 
