Jen's Journal

I spoke on a panel session at the United Nations DPI NGO Conference (www.undipngoconference.org). The theme of the conference was “Millennium Development Goals: Civil Society Takes Action” and the topic of my panel session was “Making MDGs Relevant: Taking the Campaigns Home”. The panel also included people from Brazil, Nigeria and Mexico. During my 15minutes, I spoke about the key components of the overall MDG strategy GYAN which include getting the facts/consultations, raising awareness, supporting action/youth-led development and involvement in policy processes. I then spoke about our plans to develop MDG Youth Campaigns which are based on the WSIS National Information Society Campaign model. I talked about TIG’s ability to engage youth in MDG’s through our monthly themes (upcoming focus on Entrepreneurship – where I highlighted the Youth Employment Summit) and HIV/AIDS. They seemed to be incredibly impressed with our online community and our commitment to youth involvement in global issues. I was also able to talk about our multilingual platform and how we will soon be launching Arabic, Russian and Portuguese – which they were thoroughly excited about! Over 25 people came up to me in order to exchange cards. While I do think that the fact that I was relatively young (compared to other speakers) – may have added a little extra “umph” to the presentation – I also think that we are on the right track with our work and priorities.

One of the highlights in being a speaker at the conference was that I was invited to a reception that took place at the home of Mrs. Annan (wife of Secretary General Kofi Annan. I sat at the same table as Mrs. Annan and had an opportunity to talk about TIG with others at our table. I also happened to be sitting beside the moderator for my panel (Salil Shetty – who is the Director of the UN Millennium Campaign).

During the conference I attended a range of sessions including one delivered by Jeffery Sachs (Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the MDG’s) who spoke about the importance of government’s living up to their commitments (a major theme). I also attended a session on North/South Partnerships and listened to various panelists speak about the importance of collaboration. One of the most interesting speakers was a representative from CIDA who talked about some of the initiatives in Canada – for example the Global Schools Initiative.

trip_report, undpingo