Thank you, Chair.
The United States is proud to be a main sponsor, together with more than 30 cross-regional co-sponsors, of the draft decision before you today. Bringing this list of six organizations, whose work advances all three pillars of the United Nations, is an important moment for civil society participation in the UN.
Civil society plays an essential role in both informing our work and later helping to translate that work into action on the ground. Such organizations are implementing partners in delivering humanitarian assistance, they help to keep the public informed, and they press us, as governments, to respect the rights of our people and uphold our commitments. There may be times that we do not agree with some of their viewpoints, but we must respect their rights to voice them and not punish them by withholding accreditation for such differing views.
It is through hearing a diverse range of perspectives that our work will best serve the international community going forward. As such, we should welcome members of civil society to the UN and encourage their participation rather than insert additional hurdles to their partnership.
It is for this very reason that we bring this list of organizations before you today.
Sadly, the NGO Committee failed once again in fulfill its mandate. These NGOs’ applications have been deferred for too long, and they have all been unfairly targeted for the work they do.
We continue to see the misuse of the “no objection basis” and the criteria set forth in ECOSOC resolution 1996/31, undermining the very mandate of the NGO Committee. NGOs working on issues of human rights and other issues that Committee members disagree with, represent the largest group of NGO applications deferred session after session.
As a member of the NGO Committee, the United States continues to call on the Committee to fulfill its role of enabling civil society voices in the UN by accrediting credible civil society organizations, without regard to political views. At its regular session, which ended in June, the Committee approved a no action motion to not even consider bringing these NGOs’ applications to a vote.
We are before you here today to take a decision in ECOSOC after the NGO Committee once again failed to fulfill its mandate. We have used this well-established procedure in other similar circumstances, and regret that we are in a position to have to do so today, but are happy to sponsor a decision that will increase civil society voices in the United Nations.
We understand that a vote has been called – we ask that the members of ECOSOC vote Yes, in line with the mandate established in ECOSOC resolution 1996/31, as this Council has done many times before.
Thank you.
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