Mali Advocacy Delegation in New York

In the week of November 7th, Mali Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), GPPAC and the Human Security Collective were in New York for advocacy purposes. During this week, the Mali CSOs attended various events and meetings, such as the event, "The Challenges and Opportunities for Civil Society Contributions to the Malian Peace Accord and its Implementation," and a meeting with the UN-Civil Society Prevention Platform.  During these various engagements, they brought their local stories and experiences to the global level. They also participated at a two day training on lobbying and advocacy towards the UN.

By bringing together Malian CSOs that have similar visions on peace and security and that have worked or have the potential to work together in Mali, this week aimed to:

• build the capacities of Malian CSO participants in lobby and advocacy to the UN system
• to promote collaboration between the Malian CSOs, but also to enable coordination and synergies between Malian CSOs and international NGOs involved in Mali, notably members of the Mali Affinity Group and New York-based NGOs and think tanks.
• to promote greater understanding of/ability to ensure local ownership among actors in the New York policy arena, notably to enable to implementation of a people-centred approach as recommended in key UN reports on 2015 (the HIPPO, AGE and Global Study on Women Peace and Security), by enabling a joint reflection on how to address challenges of working with local civil society and communities in Mali.

Participants:

• West Africa Network for Peacebuilding in Mali (WANEP-Mali)
• Women's Peace and Security Network in the ECOWAS Region (REPSFECO-Mali)
• Malian Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CM-CPI)
• Malian Institute of Research and Action for Peace (IMRAP)
• Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC)
• Human Security Collective
• World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy (WFM-IGP)

Background

The consortium WANEP-GPPAC-Human Security Collective is working together on the project "Civil Society for A Human Security Strategy for Mali." GPPAC's role in this project is the international and UN policy aspect. This involves a focus on the engagement of international actors involved in Mali and how they connect with local civil society. This is of particular importance in the Malian context given the heavy (and ever-expanding) involvement and role of the international community since the beginning of the security crisis 2012. With international actors - including but not restricted to the MINUSMA integrated mission - involved in, and providing for almost every aspect of state responsibilities, an overarching concern for all of these interventions is the issue of national or local ‘ownership'- a consistently stated policy objective of both international and recipient agencies. 

During the course of the project it has also been observed that coordination and collective advocacy amongst local CSOs is an important priority for the advancement and constructive role of Malian civil society. With that in mind, it was decided to organise this advocacy week with various CSOs from Mali in New York.