Dear colleagues,

Many thanks to those who participated at the March 6 UN2020 civil society videoconference. 

A couple of reminder points:

  • Please contact us if you or your organization are able to undertake follow up activities in your national context, i.e. reach out to foreign ministry or other officials.
  • Please also let us know of upcoming meetings or conferences that could include information presentation(s) regarding the importance of the anticipated UN2020 Summit. 

Audio from the call is below and a video recording is here. (The agenda is below.)


A) Information related to meetings and other updates shared during the call:

The UN2020 Call to Action was included in the program of the PyeongChang Global Peace Forum, that took place in PyeongChang, Korea, 9-11 Feb. Read also the PGPF Outcome documents. 

A Call to Action for the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly and for our proposed 2020 Summit was published last week in The Guardian. 

Upcoming side event “The Power of South-South Cooperation to Strengthen Multilateralism” during the 2nd United Nations High-level Conference in South-South Cooperation. March 20, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Please help us promote this side event and be in touch with Florencia Gor if you know of colleagues that will be in Buenos Aires for this conference. 

Other upcoming opportunities for UN2020:

  • CIVICUS International Civil Society Week: 8-12 April 2019 (Belgrade, Serbia). UN2020 will co-organize a Buzz session with Together First and PGPF.
  • Women deliver: 3-6 June 2019 (Vancouver, Canada). Soroptimist International will participate and have a booth. This will be another opportunity to present and promote UN2020. Let us know if you plan to attend. 
  • The Stimson Center, Global Challenges Foundation, One Earth Future Foundation and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York Office are organizing a Global Policy Dialogue this June in D.C., aiming to have critical participation from the UN2020 and Together First communities and providing an excellent opportunity to interact with senior government officials and representatives from international organizations on the Road to 2020. More details soon. 
  • The next Global Town Hall will be held on September 20th at the University of Pittsburgh, co-organized by the European Union Center of Excellence. Please check Global Voice for updates or contact Earl James for more details. 

If you would like to receive Together First’s updates, you can contact Ben Donaldson.  

B) List of our most recent mission visits.

As discussed during the March 6 call, we would like to complement these with letters to Ministers of Foreign Affairs and visits to national capitals. If you have ideas or contacts or would like to help with outreach in national capitals, we look forward to hearing from you and coordinating next steps. 

C) Agenda from March 6 videoconference

1. Meeting introduction (Florencia Gor)

2. Overview update, appointment of co-facilitators, recent and upcoming meetings with UN missions (Fergus Watt)

3. Reports on side events and other recent and upcoming activities where UN2020 is part of programParagraph

3.1 PyeongChang Global Peace Forum (Barbara Adams)

3.2 Commission on Social Development side event (Bette Levy)

3.3 Commission on the Status of Women (Bette Levy/Soon-Young Yoon)

3.4 Annual Parliamentary Hearing: “Emerging challenges to multilateralism: A parliamentary response” (Luise Ruerup) 

3.5 Conference on South-South Cooperation side event (Florencia Gor) 

3.6 International Civil Society Week (CIVICUS ICSW, 8 – 12 April, Belgrade) (Jeffery Huffines) 

3.7 Other meetings where UN2020 could be part of program (other meeting participants – “hands up”)

4. “Together First” update (Richard Ponzio / Ben Donaldson)

5. Discussion of preparations for a 75th anniversary summit

5.1 Mission visits 

5.2 National capital visits

5.3 National/regional consultations on UN reform proposals 

6.1 AOB

6.2 Next meeting

Please remember to share information on events and other activities, in order to construct a shared calendar. 

We will be in touch shortly with a suggested date for our next UN2020 update video conference. As always, we welcome your suggestions for improving this process. Please contact Florencia Gor with any comments.