2. Asia Consultation Meeting of UN Secretary-Generals Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations-Civil Society Relations, UN Conference Center, UNESC

Programme Review and Programme Direction

Two key deliberative sessions during the 15th CCA General Assembly are the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions.

The Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions will both be conducted in three groups relating to the CCA’s programme areas, namely, (i) General Secretariat (GS), (ii) Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF); and (iii) Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia (PD).

Assembly participants will have the option to join one of three groups for both the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions. For the sake of coherence, the assigned group will remain the same for both sessions.

General Secretariat

The General Secretariat oversees the coordination of programmatic, administrative, and financial activities of the organization. The GS comprises various departments such as church and ecumenical relations, relations with ecumenical partners, finance, administration, and communications, which provide crucial support and services for the implementation of programs and contribute to the overall functioning of the CCA.

Programmes: Relations with member churches and councils, ecumenical partners; advocacy at the United Nations; ecumenical responses to emerging issues in solidarity; income development and finance; and communications.

Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)

Under the MU programme area, the CCA accompanies Asian churches to strengthen their mission and witness in multi-religious contexts, revitalise and nurture church unity and the Asian ecumenical movement, and develop contextual theological foundations.

Programmes: Asian Movement for Christian Unity (AMCU); Congress of Asian Theologians (CATS); Asian women doing theology in the context of wider ecumenism; contextualisation of theology in Asia and ecumenical theological education.

The EF programme area focuses on nurturing and developing ecumenical leaders in Asia. The programme aims to enhance spiritual formation and theological understanding, enabling people to actively engage in ecumenical dialogue and collaboration.

Programmes: Ecumenical Enablers’ Training in Asia (EETA); Asian Ecumenical Institute (AEI); Youth and Women Leadership Development; Ecumenical Spirituality and Nurturing of Contextual Liturgical Traditions; Asia Sunday

Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)

The BP programme area is dedicated to promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation in Asia’s diverse contexts. Through training, advocacy, and dialogue, the programme addresses the root causes of conflicts, empowers communities, and fosters sustainable peacebuilding initiatives.

Programmes: Pastoral Solidarity Visits; Churches in Action for Moving Beyond Conflict and Resolution; Young Ambassadors of Peace in Asia (YAPA); Ecumenical Women’s Action Against Violence (EWAAV); Eco-Justice for Sustainable Peace in the Oikos.

The PD programme area focuses on promoting justice, human rights, and social transformation in Asia. Through advocacy, capacity-building, and raising awareness, the programme addresses systemic injustice, empowers marginalised communities, and advocates for prophetic actions and meaningful change.

Programmes: Human Rights advocacy; Migration, Statelessness, and Trafficking in Persons; Asian Ecumenical Disability Advocacy Network; Asian Advocacy Network on the Dignity and Rights of Children (AANDRoC); Ecumenical Solidarity Accompaniment and Diakonia in Asia (ESADA); Health and Healing; Good Governance; Action Together to Combat HIV and AIDS in Asia (ATCHAA).

First Preference:
Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)
Second Preference:
Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)
20 November 2003
christian conference of Asia, Asia christianity

The UN SGs Panel of Eminent Persons, or High-Level Panel [HLP] as is more commonly known, on UN-Civil Society Relations met with nearly 60 representatives of national and international civil society groups in Asia-Pacific. Civil society groups included mostly NGOs focused on a variety of issues like education, human rights, labor issues, environmental issues, social development and also faith-based organizations like CCA and Pax Romana involved in the social development of their communities, nations, and societies at large that they live in.

The Asian members of the HLP who attended this consultation were Ms. Malini Mehra, from India and Ms. Mary Racelis, from the Philippines. Ms. Zehra Aydin, UN-staff member working with the UN-HLP Secretariat in the UNSGs office, assisted them. Mr. Seonghoon (Anselmo) Lee of Pax Romana on behalf of CONGO coordinated the event. The Keynote Address was by Dr. Cielito F. Habito of the Ateneo Center for Economic Research and Development.

The following important questions were discussed:
1. Does engagement with UN assist civil society's dialogue with Government?
2. What could UN do to improve government-CS relations?
3. What role should civil society play in matters of global governance?

1. Does engagement with UN assist civil society's dialogue with Government?

As a response, the group felt that generally engagement with the UN assist CSs dialogue with governments. However, challenges are faced in terms the multiplicity of UN agencies and the weak implementation follow-up mechanism of the UN toward governmental commitments. Also there is a gap in information flow between the UN and CS.

2. What could UN do to improve government-CS relations?

Some proposals on what the UN can do to improve these relations:

1. UN should be more pro-active in its monitoring processes and mechanisms to measure how governments are implementing and complying with their commitments at various World Conferences and to UN international standards and norms.
2. Creation of a more enabling environment for CSOs to become more effective. Bringing in CSO people into the UN bodies and agencies and also in government bodies.
3. Making more consistent the ways in which various UN bodies and agencies relate with civil society and maximizing synergies and resources of these bodies.
4. Implementation and widespread dissemination of UN policies and guidelines on civil society at all levels and monitoring how these are being used.
5. Shifting away from nation-state centric ideology or framework of the UN to a We the people framework.

3. What role should civil society play in matters of global governance?

Some suggestions made were, civil society should:

3.1. Continue, researching, analyzing and criticizing the way other multilateral bodies, governments and corporations are undermining the UN and the international norms and standards.
3.2. Help strengthen the UN to play effectively its role in global governance by articulating its critiques. At the same time continue to struggle for its increased and effective participation in UN processes and mechanisms, especially the participation of the marginalised sectors of society.
3.3. Southern civil society organizations should be provided and should acquire more resources to be able to enhance their participation and increase south-south and south-north networking. Northern CSOs should focus a big part of their work in making their own governments more accountable to the rest of the world.
3.4. Continue to disseminate widely and raise awareness among its constituencies, especially at the grassroots level on what are the existing and evolving international standards and norms, the programs and declarations of World Conferences, mechanisms and instruments which people can use to ensure that these standards, policies and programs are implemented at all levels.

Civil Society plays an important role in the betterment of the people. As such, it is an important actor nationally, and internationally, and some would argue as important as governments themselves. Civil societies also play a role in counter-checking the actions of governments. As such, the UNs recognition and acceptance of CS in their framework is important. And so far there has been progress on this front in terms of bringing the CS with governments within the UN framework. However, much needs to be done.

As a faith-based organization, we analyze our involvement with the CS and with the UN and with our governments, especially in the Asia-Pacific, which is the region of CCA. It was felt that there is a large gap between the level of commitment of the non-religious CS actors and the religious CS actors like CCA. Mechanisms need to be devised to improve our credibility and effectiveness in CS. One way to achieve this is to strengthen our links with the CS movements in our communities.

It is an undeniable fact that most of civil society work, and also that of an organization like CCA, becomes reactionary, or putting out fires such as human right abuses, religious intolerance, economic injustices, labor mal-practices, etc, that, many a time, are a result of inter-governmental decisions, planned or unplanned. The CS needs to play a continued role in preventing such fires. This is as important as trying to put them out. The role of the churches, through their ecumenical movement, in this regard needs to be looked into, as an independent actor or as an active part of CS. Again, building an strengthening our links with the grassroots CS seems an mutually beneficial way ahead. It is also important for the ecumenical movement in Asia to be more involved with the inter-governmental set-ups in the region, again independently or with the Asian CS, so as to play a proactive role in the betterment of our societies.

A meeting of the Asian CSs participation in the UN threw up challenging, yet important, questions of the Asian ecumenical movements participation in the Asian CS, and in the regional national and international decision-making set-up, i.e. the governments in Asia. The answers to these questions require a collective effort on our part.