NGO Representatives Learn More about the UN and Civil Society

The UNESCO Chair for Human Rights, Peace and Democracy of Shahid Beheshti University together with United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) held a workshop on “Finding UN Information and Documentation through the UN website” with emphasis on the civil society for some 30 NGO representatives at the Salam Hall of the UNESCO Chair on 30 May 2016, AVA Diplomatic reports.

The organizer of the workshop Professor Maryam Afshari, in her opening remarks mentioned that last year she had participated in such a workshop at UNIC. Since she found it useful, she decided to organize one at the UNESCO Chairfor NGO representatives.

Ambassador Bagher Asadi, retried Iranian diplomat, who was a member of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s “Panel of Eminent Persons on Civil Society and UN Relationships,” was the guest of honour of the session. In his speech he talked about the importance of the civil society and UN-NGOs relationships during the UN history especially their involvement in the UN-organized world conferences of the 1990’s. Then he described the preparation of “Cardoso Report” (A/58/817) which formulated recommendations to strengthen UN civil society interactions.

By navigating through the UN website, UNIC Reference Assistant Ms. Nazanin Ghaemmaghmi elaborated on basic facts about the UN, UN and civil society, association with DPI, how to obtain ECOSOC consultative status from the UN website and how to find a definition and some documents on civil society.She informed the participants about sixty-sixth Department of Public Information (DPI)/Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Conference in Gyeongju from 30 May to 1 June 2016 with the theme of “Education for Global Citizenship: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Together”. The UN Secretary-General participated and had opening remarks at this conference which was held for the first time in Asia.