Civil society gears up for the UN World Summit

Following the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the International Facilitation Group of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), met in Bangkok, Thailand recently to evaluate the progress that has been made and to plan for the next phase of mobilisation. Given that GCAP was only launched on 27 January 2005 at the World Social Forum, participants felt that while more progress was sought from the G8 leadership than was achieved, civil society had made significant progress in bringing together a broad based coalition to push for progress to eradicate global poverty. The focus now is on the UN World Summit, a gathering of heads of government at the UN General Assembly in New York from 14 - 16 September. This is supposed to be an occasion where governments account for what they have achieved in terms of earlier commitments made at UN Summits and the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000. Even though most of us in civil society feel the Millennium Development Goals do not go far enough, it still looks like the assessment governments will make in September, if they are honest in their self evaluations, is that progress in achieving the goals has been dismal. (Sourced from e-Civicus)