MCLD was strongly represented at the 80th Annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). As you probably know, it is a sprawling occasion spread across Manhattan (New York, USA), with hundreds of parallel events and conferences. MCLD Global Secretary Gunjan Veda hosted two events and spoke at others, and with her colleagues, John Coonrod and Nelly Mecklenburg, attended several others. Attending the official meetings of Member State speeches is generally impossible and not particularly useful, but there were many events of direct relevance to our goal of advancing community-led development.
The general conversation was that the UN system was failing and that something new needed to emerge. One interesting option discussed was “minilateralism” where “high-aspiration coalitions of the willing” would tackle global challenges like support for GAVI, climate changes and peacebuilding. The word “localization” seemed to be on everyone’s tongue.
It was also an opportunity to meet new people interested in learning more about MCLD and who could be useful contacts – indigenous climate change and women’s civil society funding in Latin America; CLD and young leader development in Africa.
Book Launch: Gunjan and co-editor Elene Clote, the new CEO of Outreach International, discussed the book Community-led Practice: We Power Our Own Change with a full side event on the first day of “High Level Week”, September 22 held at the SideBar, a community-led initiative that provides spaces for civil society events and gatherings during international events. While Majority World staff and civil society representation was generally low at UNGA this year due to visa challenges, our event was almost entirely filled by Majority World participants.
Proximity Now: Our second event, co-hosted by MCLD and EPIC-Africa at the Foundation for Just Society, was also full, and is fully covered on our website at this link. The head of EPIC-Africa, Rose Maruru shared the research finding that 53% of all African CBOs were engaged in local fundraising from individuals, many noting it as a major source of their revenue.
Gunjan was a panelist at the Wings Philanthropy Event, recorded and available on Youtube at this link. In a Wings post on X, they quote Gunjan in the featured image:
They announced a coalition of funders aiming to counter some of the attacks/ issues in the funding landscape.