Happy New Year! The NGO Committee on Financing for Development would like to cordially invite you to its first regular monthly meeting of the year, to be held virtually on Tuesday, January 17, from 1:00pm – 3:00pm.
The members of the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/Vienna and the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/Vienna are looking forward to seeing you on Thursday, Dec. 15th!
The NGO CSW Vienna meeting will begin at 3pm.
The joint meeting of the CSW and the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/Vienna will begin at 4pm.
The meetings will be both in-person (VIC Room C0237) and via Zoom (see link below). This will be our first hybrid meeting, so some technical glitches might occur.
Topic: NGO CSW Vienna’s Zoom Meeting Time: Dec 15, 2022 03:00 PM Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna
CoNGO Notes: The NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/Vienna is a Substantive Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. Likewise, for more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/Vienna, please visit ngocswvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/Geneva, please visit ngocsw-geneva.ch. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/NY, please visit ngocsw.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org.
We invite you all to sign on to the letter, and the deadline for doing so is Friday 16 December 2022. You can find the letter here and the form to sign on is here.
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To the kind attention of:
Permanent Representatives and Permanent Observers to the United Nations in New York
United Nations Secretariat, Agencies and Programmes
X December 2022
Subject: Implementation of UNGA Second Committee resolution on promotion of inclusive and effective international tax cooperation at the United Nations (A/C.2/77/L.11/Rev.1)
Your Excellencies distinguished representatives of UN Member States,
We, the undersigned civil society organisations and trade unions, strongly support and welcome the UNGA resolution on promotion of inclusive and effective international tax cooperation at the UN (A/C.2/77/L.11/Rev.1). We commend the Africa Group for its excellent leadership on this issue and for finally ensuring implementation of the long-standing demand of developing countries for a UN intergovernmental negotiation process on international tax. We urge all UN Member States to maintain and reinforce the spirit of international cooperation that resulted in the adoption by consensus of this historic resolution.
Furthermore, we are writing to you with a call for all governments to work constructively towards the urgent and efficient implementation of the resolution. This includes:
Supporting a speedy approval in the UNGA Fifth Committee of the required budget allocation for the implementation of the resolution, in line with the related Programme budget implications analysis (A/C.2/77/L.75). The budget requirement, totaling US$ 432,700, was presented to Member States ahead of the adoption of the resolution. We now count on all UN Member States to stand by the consensus agreement reached with the resolution and confirm the allocation of the required resources. We also urge all UN Member States to keep in mind that international tax cooperation is urgently needed, not least to combat tax-related illicit financial flows, which are costing governments hundreds of billions of dollars in lost tax income every year. This must therefore be a matter of high importance and urgency.
Supporting strong stakeholder involvement in the consultation process related to the UN Secretary General’s report as mandated by the resolution. We strongly welcome the fact that stakeholder consultation is explicitly included in the text of the resolution, and we stand ready to make our contributions. We, the undersigned civil society organisations and trade unions, bring in-depth knowledge from all regions of the world about the devastating impacts of the failure of international tax cooperation, including the continued bleeding of public resources in the form of illicit financial flows. We also bring concrete and specific proposals for solutions, including for how a future UN Convention on Tax could be designed.
Supporting a strong intergovernmental UN process to strengthen international tax cooperation. Through the resolution, all UN Member States have agreed to “begin intergovernmental discussions in New York at United Nations Headquarters on ways to strengthen the inclusiveness and effectiveness of international tax cooperation”. We strongly welcome this vital initiative, and stress the importance of moving forward with urgency. As stated in the adopted resolution, combating illicit financial flows is an essential development challenge, and developing countries are particularly susceptible to the negative impact of illicit financial flows. Therefore, we believe that the modalities for the foreseen process must be adopted as a matter of high priority, and this should take place no later than the seventy-eighth session of the UN General Assembly. Furthermore, we would like to stress the importance of ensuring that the modalities provide for a transparent and inclusive member state-led negotiation process with full participation of stakeholders, including civil society.
Despite the fact that international tax rules and standards affect all countries and people of the world, there has until this point been no inclusive international body where all countries were able to participate on an equal footing in the decision-making on international tax matters. This injustice is at the heart of the failure of the international tax system, which has continued to be characterised by injustice, inefficiency, incoherence, unilateral actions and beggar-thy-neighbor policies. All countries have paid a high price for this failure, but the impacts on developing countries have been particularly hard. The UN remains the only truly universal body where all countries participate as equals, and the consensus adoption of the UN resolution, including the decision to begin intergovernmental discussions on international tax matters under the auspices of the UN, constitutes a truly historical shift towards fairness and inclusivity.
The urgency of this matter cannot be overstated. In light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the “cost of living crisis”, the fight to increase domestic resource mobilisation and combat illicit financial flows has never been more vital. In 2021, the State of Tax Justice report estimated that countries around the world are losing over US$450 billion per year due to international tax dodging and abuse by multinational corporations and wealthy individuals. Faced with the challenges of financing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and combatting the global environmental crises, it is clear that the international community must take urgent action to strengthen international tax cooperation and stop the immense bleeding of public resources.
We remain at your disposal if you would like to receive more information or would like to meet to discuss this issue further.
Civil Society Financing for Development (FfD) Group
Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ): Alliance of five continental tax and fiscal justice networks in Asia (Tax & Fiscal Justice Asia), Africa (Tax Justice Network Africa), Latin America (Red de Justicia Fiscal de América Latina y el Caribe), Europe (Tax Justice-Europe) and North America (Canadians for Tax Fairness & FACT Coalition), collectively representing hundreds of organisations.
European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad)
The United Nations (UN) Permanent Forum of People of African Descent will hold its very first session from 5 to 8 December 2022 at the Palais des Nations of the UN Office in Geneva, Switzerland.
Tuesday 29 November 2022, from 1 to 3 PM CET (Zurich time)
(7:00 AM in New York City, USA / 9:30 AM in Curitiba, Brazil / 1 PM Yaoundé, Cameroon / 7 PM in Bangkok, Thailand)
Ahead of this historic session, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) of the World Council of Churches (WCC) offers a virtual side event entitled The New UN Forum for People of African descent: realising the promises of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA)?
What are the lessons learnt since the 2001 Durban World Conference Against Racism? What kind of progress have we witnessed at the UN and other regional fora?
What can we hope from this new body? How can churches contribute to its work?
Policy efforts to combat systemic racism and racial discrimination
Structural racism as the legacy of slavery and colonialism: communities of African descent across the globe live in structural discrimination and structural invisibility, and are scarred by poverty, underdevelopment, marginalization, social exclusion and economic disparities.
Moderator: Rev. Jennifer S. Leath, WCC Central Committee member, African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME)
Panellists:
Rev. Dr Iva Carruthers, Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference
Dr. Sushi Raj, member of UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent
Ms Marilia A. Schüller, Methodist Church of Brazil
Rev. Dr Angelique Walker-Smith, WCC President from North America
Rev. Emmanuel Wayi, Cameroon Network for Alternative Solutions (CAMNAS)
Rev. Lamont Wells, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
CoNGO Notes: For more information on the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations, please visit rngos.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please visit un-ngocrip.net.
The NGO Committee on the Family invites you to join us at our event in which we will hear from Paul Carrese and Tammy Waller about providing civic education to children.
Date: Thursday, November 17th, 2022
Time: 1:15-2:30 PM
CoNGO Notes: The NGO Committee on the Family/NY is a Substantive Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. Likewise, for more information on the NGO Committee on the Family/Vienna, please visit viennafamilycommittee.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Intergenerational Solidarity, please email the chair at susanneseperson@gmail.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Education, Learning, and Literacy, please visit facebook.com/NGOCELLatUN.
Join the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/NY’s regular monthly meeting on November 17 at 8:00am EST. Meeting details will become available on the committee’s website soon.
CoNGO Notes: The NGO Committee on the Status of Women/NY is a Substantive Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/Vienna, please visit ngocswvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/Geneva, please visit ngocsw-geneva.ch. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Human Rights, please email the co-chairs at bobbinassar@yahoo.com or bknotts@uua.org.
The NGO Committee on FoRB (NY) will host its Annual General Meeting at the Baha’i Center (866 United Nations Plaza #120) on Wednesday, October 12, from 1:15 – 2:30pm (EDT). A light lunch will be provided. (For those unable to attend in person, we will have a Zoom option for virtual attendance.)
Annual General Meeting:
The bureau will provide a brief overview of recent developments in the international FoRB space. We will also discuss ideas for upcoming events. We will conclude by holding our biannual bureau elections. Attached please find the proposed slate for the election.
Please RSVP for the Annual General Meeting at info@unforb.org by Monday, October 10, 2022.
A Zoom link will be sent out to those who have RSVP’d for virtual attendance approximately an hour prior to the start of the event.
For more information on the Committee, please visit our website: unforb.org.
CoNGO Notes: The NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief is a Substantive Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. Likewise, for more information on the NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values, and Global Concerns/NY, please visit csvgc-ny.org. For more information on the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations, please visit rngos.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org.
Please join Religions for Peace USA for a conversation with Dr. Simran Jeet Singh about his new best seller book which shows how each of us can turn away from fear and uncertainty and move toward renewal and positive change.
This webinar is co-hosted by Sikh Council for Interfaith Relations and Religions for Peace USA.
CoNGO Notes: For more information on the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations, please visit rngos.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief, please visit unforb.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values, and Global Concerns/NY, please visit csvgc-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Mental Health, please visit ngomentalhealth.org.
In 1990, the United Nations’ General Assembly voted to establish October 1st as the International Day of Older Persons [IDOP] (GA Res. 45/106). Each year, the Vienna-based NGO Committee on Ageing organises a commemoration event in early October.
This year’s Vienna event will be celebrated in the afternoon of Monday, 3 October 2022 starting at 13:30, in the main hall of the ÖJAB-Haus (Untere Augartenstrasse 31, 1020 Wien).
The UN-wide general theme of the upcoming IDOP commemoration is “The Resilience and Contributions of Older Women”. You and your colleagues may also register to attend in person. However, those wishing to attend via online are kindly asked to register via this Zoom link.
The event starts at 13:30 hours and finishes at 16:00 hours, after which refreshments will be served. There is an opportunity to follow the parallel IDOP event at UN headquarters which starts at 10:00 hours New York time (16:00 hours Vienna time) via a large TV screen at the OJAB-Haus.
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CoNGO Notes: The NGO Committee on Ageing-Viennais a Substantive Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. Likewise, for more information on the NGO Committee on Ageing-NY, please visit ngocoa-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Ageing-Geneva, please visit ageingcommitteegeneva.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Intergenerational Solidarity, please email the vice chair at susanneseperson@gmail.com.
Join Baha’i International Community, CIVICUS, Democracy Without Borders, and the Coalition for the UN We Need for part IV of the “Our Common Agenda” Discussion Series, which will focus on:
Participation and Representation: Better Connecting “We the Peoples” to the Multilateral System
International decision making is improved when diverse perspectives are welcomed. Participants in this session will provide concrete proposals for new approaches to strengthen democratic participation, representation and inclusion in the multilateral system.
An open discussion will follow lead-off remarks from:
H.E. Mr. Martin Bille Hermann, Denmark • H.E. Ms. Maritza Chan Valverde, Costa Rica (invited) • Ms. María Fernanda Espinosa, Group of Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion • Mr. Jo Leinen, UNPA Campaign • Ms. Emilia Saiz, United Cities and Local Governments • Mr. Mandeep Tiwana, CIVICUS • Ms. Maithili Pai, International Service for Human Rights • Mr. Javier Surasky, CEPEI • Mr. Khaled Emam, Major Group for Children and Youth • Ms. Natalie Samarasinghe, Open Society Foundations
CoNGO Notes: For more information on the Committee of Religious NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations, please visit rngos.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Human Rights, please email the co-chairs at bobbinassar@yahoo.com or bknotts@uua.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please visit facebook.com/NGOCoRIP. For more information on the NGO Committee on Language and Languages, please email the co-chairs at fmhult@umbc.edu or tonkin@hartford.edu. For more information on the NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values, and Global Concerns/NY, please visit csvgc-ny.org.
