Strengthening Citizen Participation in Global Governance: Establishing a Permanent Global Citizens

Iswe Foundation’s is hosting an event on “Strengthening Citizen Participation in Global Governance: Establishing a Permanent Global Citizens’ Assembly” on Tuesday 30 April at 15.00-16.15pm CET.

Last month, Iswe Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, Plataforma CIPÓ, Blue Smoke, and Southern Voice co-published a challenge paper on“Strengthening Citizen Participation in Global Governance”. Read it here. 

The paper argues that global governance systems need to move beyond piecemeal approaches to citizen participation and commit to establishing innovative, structural, and sustainable mechanisms that provide a legitimate voice for citizens in global governance. The paper alsosets out a roadmap for strengthening citizen participation, with a key recommendation to establish a permanent Global Citizens’ Assembly. 

Iswe Foundation is now working to turn this recommendation into reality by building a Coalition for a Global Citizens’ Assembly, which will be launched at the UN Summit of the Future inSeptember 2024. This multi-stakeholder coalition will support the establishment of a permanent Global Citizens’ Assembly and endorse its recommendations, the first of which will be announced at COP30 in Brazil. 

With 6 months to go until the Summit of the Future, this event will explore how to make the most of the opportunity presented by the Summit to make citizen participation in global governance the new normal, and next steps for establishing a permanent Global Citizens’ Assembly. Participants will have a chance to engage with co-authors of the challenge paper and architects of the Coalition for a Global Citizens’ Assembly.