CIVICUS World Assembly

6th CIVICUS World Assembly, one of 2006s biggest and most dynamic events organised for and by civil society.

The 6th CIVICUS World Assembly will take place in Glasgow, Scotland from 2-25 June 2006. We hope that you will join us in Glasgow where together civil society in all its diversity will debate how to achieve justice for all and will engage with each other as well as with governments, businesses, and international institutions.

The theme of the conference will be Acting Together for a Just World. We are planning to hold 4 main plenary sessions, 8 mini-plenary sessions, and over 80 workshops during which we hope to ignite a dynamic and inspiring exchange of views and lessons learned on improving global governance, strengthening civil society, and empowering the poor. BBC World will be the main broadcast sponsor of the event, and will provide extensive advance and on-site coverage of the event globally, possibly including live global coverage of key sessions. We also have a number of organisations like Oracle and TerraViva providing webcasting services to the World Assembly.

Our main plenary sessions will include presenters such as Amani Kandil, Executive Director of the Arab Network for NGOs, Egypt; Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, President of the Association for Womens Rights in Development, Nigeria; Filiz Bikmen, Executive Director, Third Sector Foundation, Turkey; Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, UK; Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for International Development, UK; Huwaida Arraf, Co-founder, International Solidarity Movement, Palestine; Ing Kantha Phavi, Minister of Womens Affairs, Cambodia; Jack McConnell, First Minister, Scotland; Juan Somavia, Director-General of the International Labour Organisation, Chile; Mary Robinson, Executive Director of Ethical Globalization Initiative, Ireland; and Yuri Dzhibladze, President of the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, Russia.

Some of the organisations who have confirmed participation at the World Assembly are: ActionAid International; African Labour Research Network; Associação Brasileira para o Desenvolvimento de Lideranças; Centre for Youth and Social Development; Gender and Development Action; International Confederation of Free Trade Unions; International Council on Human Rights Policy; IT for Change ( India); Malvatumauri (National Council of Chiefs in Vanuatu); Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement; the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law; the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict; and World Vision. We also have a number of sessions on civil society-donor relations, with representatives from African Womens Development Fund; Big Lottery Fund; Charities Aid Foundation; Community Foundations of Canada; DfID; European Foundation Centre; Ford Foundation; and NOVIB.

If you would like to receive further information about the CIVICUS World Assembly or would like to register for this event on-line, please visit our website at www.civicusassembly.org and/or email us at civicusassembly@scvo.org.uk. We hope that you will be able to join us for this event and contribute to our quest to strengthen civil society for all.

Kumi Naidoo
Secretary General
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation