UN80: Endorse This Letter

Your Excellencies,
Mr. António Guterres, Secretary-General, Ms. Annalena Baerbock, President of the 80th General Assembly, and Mr. Guy Bernard Ryder, Head of the UN80 Task Force

We, the undersigned, seek to ensure that civil society engagement as well as health, mental health, HIV and AIDS, other communicable and non-communicable diseases, and universal health coverage are central within the UN80 process. We are writing to express our concern that civil society and communities – particularly national and local actors – have so far been excluded from the UN80 Initiative, as demonstrated by the UN 80 Ad Hoc Working Group on Mandate Implementation and the Shifting Paradigms report. Civil society and community participation must be a non-negotiable pillar of the UN80 Initiative.

We welcome your leadership on the UN80 Initiative, and urge you to ensure that this Initiative not only addresses the current UN system financial crisis but also re-imagines the UN to drive transformational reforms and address today’s challenges. Every day, our organisations serve people facing shrinking access to life-saving services and increased human rights violations. Our frontline work and engagement in multilateral processes demonstrate that civil society engagement and community-led responses are critical for efficient and people-centred decision-making.

As the way forward, we urge that the UN80 Initiative adopts the following recommendations and key next steps to ensure the necessary inclusion of civil society and community expertise in shaping the future of the UN:

Our first recommendation is to urgently establish meaningful civil society and communities’ representation and engagement across the UN80 Initiative, including the UN80 Task Force, workstreams and clusters, including those reviewing mandates and coordination structures. It is critical to ensure participatory governance is a core pillar of UN renewal processes.This includes the following key steps:

2.3 To facilitate effective civil society participation, we ask you to implement recommendations outlined in this zero draft proposal of the United Nations Code of Conduct for Interacting with Civil Society in Standard-Setting and Research Talks (UN CCIC-SSTART).

The expense of travel to in-person meetings and persisting challenges obtaining visas to the United States, Switzerland, and other key UN venues obstruct civil society’s equitable participation in the UN80 and other UN decision-making processes.