Bautista will preside over a CoNGO General Assembly with a full agenda and a keynote message from former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet
CoNGO President Liberato Bautista, SUNA award recipient for 2025 (left), with SUNA 2024 awardee Denise Scotto (right).
A busy and demanding agenda will keep delegates engaged at the Twenty-Eighth General Assembly of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CoNGO), which is scheduled to take place both in New York and online from Monday, October 27, to Wednesday, October 29, 2025.
Delegates will hear a keynote address from the former President of Chile, H. E. Michele Bachelet. The Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations in New York, H. E. Paula Narvaez, will be in attendance to deliver the message.
Read Bautista’s Acceptance Speech
High UN officials and representatives of UN entities attending the hybrid assembly will include the president of ECOSOC, H.E. Mr. Lok Bahadur Thapa; Tatiana Valovaya, Under-Secretary General and Director General of the UN Office at Geneva; Ms. Xiaohong Li, representative of the New York Liaison Office of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime; Ms. Mirella Dummar-Frahi, Chief Civil Society Officer at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna; Ms. Gitanjali Sah, Strategy and Policy Coordinator at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); Mr. Philippe Hug, Chief of the NGO Liaison Unit at the UN Office at Geneva; Mr. Felipe Quiepo, Program Management and Communications Officer at the UN Department of Global Communications; and Ms. Kristel Lõuk, Team Leader for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly.
Bautista, a three-term President of CoNGO, will deliver his President’s Report, marking the end of the longest-standing presidency in the organization’s seventy-seven-year history. As an innovative approach, he has invited three conversation partners to discuss the assembly’s three-part theme with Garry Jacobs of the World Academy of Art and Science, on the theme “Defining the Present,” with Ketan Patel of Force for Good on the theme “Securing a Shared Future,” and with Jesselina Rana of CIVICUS on the theme “Asserting Civil Society Participation at the United Nations.”
The assembly operates as a deliberative body representing the entire organization. Its agenda encompasses discussions regarding the role and engagement of NGOs and civil society within the United Nations. The assembly will evaluate its activities since the last meeting in 2021 and will conduct elections for a new president and a twenty-member board using an electronic voting platform for the first time.
Among the assembly’s key agenda items are a resolution addressing the financial and funding crisis at the United Nations, a revision of CoNGO’s Compendium of Principles for NGO Good Practice to include a new section on the ethical and responsible use of information, communication technologies, and artificial intelligence, and a renewed appreciation of the role and significance of NGO committees within the CoNGO umbrella as platforms for meaningful engagement with the UN and broader civil society.
As CoNGO President Bautista’s term was coming to a close, he joyfully received the 2025 Spirit of the UN Award on October 23, 2025. In his heartfelt acceptance speech, he expressed his sincere admiration for everyone who has championed the UN spirit. “This special recognition isn’t just mine—it belongs to everyone who passionately works toward justice, peace, and human dignity. It’s for those who see the United Nations not just as a political body, but as a moral and spiritual journey that brings us all closer together.”
