Welcome to new SC members

Welcome to the Steering Committee for 1999-2000! -- NGO Steering Committee to the U.N. CSD -- Steering Committee | Home | Site Map

Congratulations on your election to the Committee! This page sets out some of the Steering Committee’s goals for the year, and what we hope your role will involve. Please take a moment to read this page, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask us. We’re looking forward to working with you.

What we hope to achieve this year:

1. Preparing for CSD-8 (2000), CSD-9 (2001), CSD-10 (2002) and Earth Summit III (2002)
2. Following up on actions from this and previous CSDs
3. Broadening the coalitions of NGOs actively participating in the CSD

Steering Committee member’s responsibilities:

1. Communications to NGOs in your region/major group/issue caucus:
a. Electronic Communications: We have the following electronic media available for your use:

Listservers: As well as the Steering Committee listserver and the general ‘csdgen’ listserver, other issue-focussed lists have been established with the free service, ‘e-groups.com’. If you’d like to establish a list for your caucus or region, please talk to us.

Web-site: The Steering Committee web-site is available at <www.csdngo.org/csdngo> Currently, each issue caucus has a very simple page listing the purpose and membership of the caucus. There are no pages yet established for regions or major groups. There is space for the different groups to develop their own pages – again, please let us know if you’d like to have a page, or if you’d like us to link the site to your organisation.

b. Non-Electronic Communications: It is very important to remember that not all of your constituency will have access to e-mail and the web. All members of your group need to be kept informed of developments, especially in the preparation of any position papers or other documents, so fax and postal mailing are still important methods of communication. (The Clearinghouses may be able to assist with this – let us know if you have information you need to get out.)

2. Communications to the Steering Committee:
Communication needs to be a two-way process. Please remember to feed your region/caucus/major group information back to the Steering Committee, so we can disseminate it to the wider NGO coalition.

3. Outreach:
In an effort to broaden the involvement of NGOs in the CSD, we ask that you take some time to identify the ‘gaps’ in the participation in your region/group/caucus (e.g. under-representation by a particular region, sector, etc.) This will help the Steering Committee in targeting its outreach to new NGOs.

Another important aspect of out outreach is finding translators. If you or someone you know is able to help with translation of information, especially into Spanish and French, please let us know.

4. Facilitation:
This is especially important for those issue caucuses with issues coming up between now and 2002. The Co-Coordinators (or their delegated caucus members) need to facilitate the development of NGO position papers, in order that the NGOs are able to ‘hit the ground running’ when they arrive at CSD.

If you need assistance or information:

The Southern and Northern Co-Chairs and Clearinghouses are here to help. Let us know your plans, and if there are areas where we can work together to achieve our goals. If it all sounds a bit overwhelming, remember we have a year!

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