The United Nations – Civil Society Assembly (UN-CSA) convened last July 27 – 29, 2017 in Quezon City. The UN-CSA is a consultative mechanism set up by the UN country team for CSOs to interact with UN bodies in the Philippines. The assembly reviewed its initiatives for the past 3 years, particularly on engaging in the Sustainable Development Goals processes at the global, regional and national levels. They also formulated recommendations to UN’s ongoing review of their Development Assistance Framework and country programme, as well as formulated their UNCSA cluster action plans. Fifteen (15) new members of the Civil Society Advisory Council (CSAC) were elected to serve for 2017 – 2019, with the corresponding clusters that they lead, as follows:

• Caucus of Development NGO Networks (CODE-NGO) for Democratic Governance
• Eastern Visayas Network og NGOs and POs (EVNET) for Environment
• Mindanao Coalition of Development NGO Networks (MINCODE) for Peace and Human Rights
• Philippine Social Enterprise Network (PhilSEN) and Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) for Economic Development
• Women Health and National Rural Women Coalition (PKKK) for Human Development
• Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) for Luzon
• Western Visayas Network of Social Development NGOs (WEVNET) for Visayas
• Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS) for Mindanao
• Women’s Action Network for Development (WAND), PAKISAMA, Social Watch, Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) and E-Net – elected at large.

Then, on its first meeting last August 23, the Advisory Council elected PAHRA represented by Rose Trajano as Co-Convenor for UN-CSAC. The election of PAHRA via a consensus reflects the priority of CSAC on human rights issues for the period.

Mariefe Del Mundo is the Program Officer for Advocacy of CODE-NGO.