"MOBILIZING FOR CHANGE" WFUNA releases its 2005 report on civil society action for the Millennium Development Goals 21 June, New York - As representatives of civil society organizations and the private sector come together this week to present their messages to member states at Informal, Interactive Hearings with the United Nations General Assembly, the World Federation of United Nations Associations and The North-South Institute are releasing their 4th annual report on civil society engagement with the Millennium Development Goals. Entitled, We the Peoples 2005- Mobilizing for Change: Messages from Civil Society, the report will be launched prior to the Hearings at an event held on Wednesday, 22 June from 3.00 to 6.00 in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium of the United Nations (event information is below). The report is based on a global online survey, offered in Arabic, English, French and Spanish, to which over 400 non-governmental organizations from 116 countries responded. It reviews progress made over the past five years since the Millennium Declaration was adopted in 2000, lessons that need to be learned and priorities for action in the future. The report calls on world leaders at the September Summit in New York to: - Implement the Millennium Development Goals, but go beyond them. Get at the roots of poverty and growing inequality; remove the obstacles to universal human rights, health, and education; eliminate the dangers to our planet's climate and environment; and undertake urgent collective action to build and sustain peace everywhere. - Strengthen the United Nations to assure development, social justice, peace, and security in our world. - Commit the necessary resources, human and financial, to these ends. We the Peoples 2005 is available in English and French at www.wfuna.org and www.nsi-ins.ca. -------------------------------------------------- Celebrating the role of NGOs at the UN Prior to the UN General Assembly Hearings with Civil Society, WFUNA and UNA-Sweden are co-hosting a celebration of the role of NGOs at the UN today, 22 June. All speakers and active participants attending the Hearings have been invited to attend the event which will take place in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium. The program will honor the role of NGOs at the founding of the UN Charter in 1945. Professor Stephen Schlesinger, author of "Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations" will lead the discussion. NGO reports on the themes of the Hearings will be launched, including: - "We the Peoples 2005: The UN Millennium Declaration and Beyond Mobilizing for Change: Message from Civil Society" by WFUNA and the North-South Institute (Available online at http://www.wfuna.org/document.cfm?documentID="2) - "We Will Spare No Effort: A Civil Society Call to Action for the Five Year Review of the UN Millennium Summit and the Millennium Development Goals" report, by the Millennium+5 NGO Network; based on NGO consultations at the functional commission of ECOSOC and other meetings. The report will be made available shortly on the web at http://www.ngocongo.org/mdg. - The Declaration of the Copenhagen NGO conference, convened by UNA-Denmark 8 - 10 June, 2005 This event will provide an opportunity for civil society participants to share and clarify their message to the Hearings. Momentos to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of Dag Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General from 1953-61, will be given to the UN secretariat staff working with NGOs.