Dear NGO Colleagues,
I wanted to write to DPI’s partners in the NGO community as early as possible after the holiday season to wish you a Happy New Year and all the best for 2013 and beyond. I also wanted to thank you for the great cooperation and support received in the last two years since I assumed my position as Director of DPI’s Outreach Division. I particularly appreciated your individual and collective contributions that lead to the great success of the 3-5 September 2011 DPI/NGO Conference in Bonn and the many activities and briefings we have had at UN Headquarters in New York or that you implemented in your own geographic area and local membership.
The declaration that was adopted at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development provides us with groundwork on which to build the Future We Want. To succeed, we will need to vitalize our interaction and energize UN-Civil Society partnership.
While the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have made a huge impact in the lives of billions, much more needs to be done to address extreme poverty, disease, and environmental crisis. Accelerated actions must continue for the world to achieve the MDG targets by 2015. At the same time, much focus is now being placed on the post-2015 global development agenda that would build on progress achieved through the MDGs. This would also need to confront persistent inequalities and new challenges facing people and our planet Earth.
The Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda will continue internal discussion and consultation with civil society and other key groups before submitting a report containing its recommendations to the Secretary-General by the end of May 2013.
In addition to the above, there are a large number of issues and priorities that DPI will be working on with our partners to help achieve the Organization’s substantive goals in development, human rights and peace and security. These are detailed in DPI’s Communications Guidelines for 2013. I hope that you will find these Guidelines useful in organizing your own agenda and activities over the coming year.
I am looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the first DPI/NGO Briefing of 2013 on Thursday, 17 January, to discuss the above and other aspects of further collaboration with you in person. At a meeting with the Chair and the Officers of the Board of the NGO/DPI Executive Committee on Thursday, 10 January, I shared with them additional details about the years to come and the increased challenges facing all of us, particularly those arising from the impact of the global economic crisis.
For those who will not be able to attend in person but will be following the webcast, please send any questions or queries as an inbox message to the NGO relations Facebook page: facebook.com/UNDPINGOsPartners4Change. Please give your name and affiliation with your question.
Once again, I wish you all the best for 2013 and beyond.
Maher
Maher Nasser (Mr.)
Director
Outreach Division
Department of Public Information