Well, thank you, and thank you for the invitation to be here. Good morning, everyone.

The United Nations is, of course, first and foremost, an organization created by states and for states to come together and take collective action to realize the high ideals of the UN Charter. But already in the Charter, with the first words, “We the peoples of the United Nations,” we see a broader ambition. And, in fact, there were representatives of 1,200 voluntary organizations present at the founding UN conference in San Francisco in 1945, and they were instrumental in drafting those first seven words of the Charter, “We the peoples.”

And if you look deeper in the Charter, in Article 71 of the Charter, you see that the founders of the UN recognized already that non-state perspectives would be important for the organization's work, and Article 71 provided the Economic and Social Council with the authority to “make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence.”

The role of non-state actors at the United Nations has grown, developed over time, in response to specific needs of the UN system. In a variety of organs there has been increasing recognition that hearing the voices of civil society strengthens the discourse between states and also beyond states, and contributes to more durable outcomes. As early as 1950, in its Resolution 288B(X), the Economic and Social Council created the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations to facilitate the establishment of consultative arrangements with NGOs. In 1996, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) updated the arrangements that had been in place since 1968. In doing so, it confirmed the need to take into account the full diversity of non-governmental organizations at the national, regional, and international levels, and it acknowledged the breadth of non-governmental organizations' expertise and the capacity of non-governmental organizations to support the work of the United Nations.

Now there is a process, established by the Economic and Social Council, to accredit NGOs. This process examines the extent to which the aims and purposes of the organization in question are in conformity with the spirit, purposes, and principles of the Charter. The process considers whether the organization has standing within the field of its competence or has a representative character, and there are technical criteria also. It is a matter of public record that the committee's assessment of particular organizations has, on occasion, been controversial, but this is the process that remains the principal entry point of civil society into the work of the organization.

Within the organization's intergovernmental bodies, the role of civil society varies. It is particularly pronounced at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, where accredited NGOs participate in the Council's work as observers. In that role they attend and observe almost all the proceedings of the Council. They can submit written statements and make oral interventions to the Council. They participate in debates and directive dialogues, panel discussions, and informational meetings, and they can organize parallel events on issues relevant to the work of the Council. Civil society is, in fact, an essential component of the Human Rights Council's work, and the Council, as we know it today, would be inconceivable without this strong civil society presence.

Other organs of the organization have evolved varying practices that reflect the specific mandates that they have. For example, non-governmental organizations regularly appear in the capacity of petitioners in the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly, which deals with the colonization issues. Civil society has also come to play an important role in high-level events of the General Assembly, in treaty-making conferences and processes, and in that way contributes to the formalization of norms of international law at the source. Typically, when the General Assembly is adopting a resolution to convene an international conference, it will include a provision with respect to the modalities for the participation of civil society within the conference. A recent example of the prominent role that civil society plays in such conferences is the process leading to the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, and as you know, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, on the basis of its contribution to that treaty-making process. And, of course, civil society engagement was also critical for the Mine Ban Treaty and the Rome Statute.

I want to shift now, if we are talking about the Liz-Sarah spectrum, as Elan suggested, to more formal participation in specific operational aspects of the organization's work, and mention a few examples in which that takes place. A good example is the work of the organization to combat HIV/AIDS, the program known as UNAIDS. UNAIDS, which was launched by the Economic and Social Council in 1996, is a joint program of eleven UN cosponsors, and it is the only UN entity with civil society represented on its governing board.

Specifically, the Programme Coordinating Board for UNAIDS includes representatives of twenty-two geographically diverse cosponsors, the eleven UN system cosponsors, and no fewer than five representatives of non-governmental organizations, including associations of people living with HIV. Three of these representatives are from developing countries and two from developed countries or countries with economics in transition. The selection of the five NGOs is determined by the NGOs themselves, from among those either in consultative status with ECOSOC, through the process I just mentioned, or in relationship with one of the cosponsoring organizations.

Through this structure, the Programme Coordinating Board, civil society directly impacts the establishment of policies and priorities for UNAIDS joint programs and reviews and decides on planning, budgeting, financing, and execution. This new governance model has been recognized by the Economic and Social Council as a lesson learned for the UN system for progress in the sustainable development era. And this multi-stakeholder governance concept has also influenced other multilateral mechanisms, such as GAVI, which is the Vaccine Alliance, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and the program called Roll Back Malaria.

A different model, which fuses UN and civil society components, is Sustainable Energy for All. This entity, SEforALL, is a nonprofit, independent, quasi-organization working with leaders in government, the private sector, and civil society to accelerate the drive toward achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7 on access to energy, and also the Paris Agreement. SEforALL was launched by the former secretary-general of the UN and it operates under the leadership of a special representative of the UN secretary-general, but the strategic guidance is provided by the advisory board of the entity, which is a body co-chaired by the secretary-general and the president of the World Bank, which is made up of forty leaders from key government and international organizations, energy businesses, and civil society organization. In this way the synergies that can be drawn from fusing non-governmental, corporate, and governmental vantage points are being given effect through this novel vehicle of UN and also private entity.

I want to mention also a relatively new development within the Secretariat itself relating to the organization's efforts to deal with the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN officials and peacekeepers. The secretary-general, last year, established a Civil Society Advisory Board to enable the organization to benefit from the insights of civil society in dealing with these same issues. The board is chaired, at a senior level, by a UN official, and will comprise of seven leading figures from civil society and other external experts with peace options and humanitarian experience. The board will provide advice to the secretary-general and to senior officials to assess and strengthen preventive measures and accountability mechanisms and victim support and assistance. It will seek to identify best practices in these areas. I have been involved in the development of this civil society board and we are very hopeful that this will assist the UN in developing a better response to this very serious problem.

I have been, of necessity, somewhat brief in the presentation but I have touched on a number of areas in which the UN is seeking to increasingly engage with civil society and with non-state actors. There are areas, such as in the work of the Security Council, where the engagement of civil society remains limited if you compare it to what I have been speaking about. I think the trends are clear and suggest greater involvement of civil society in the work of the UN, and I think we will see additional means of incorporating civil society input into the organization's work in the future.

I will stop there. Thank you.