CIVICUS, in its capacity as Secretariat for the World Bank-Civil Society Joint Facilitation Committee (JFC), is preparing an Issues Paper and Statement of Principles on World Bank-civil society engagement. The Issues Paper is to be based on consultations with wider civil society on areas of the Bank’s governance, policies and operations that are of concern to civil society organizations (CSOs) and will make recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of World Bank-civil society engagement.

It will also form the basis of a Statement of Principles on World Bank-civil society engagement, which the Bank’s board will consider adopting. The Statement of Principles and the recommendations made in the Issues Paper will be presented at the Global Policy Forum planned for the first quarter of 2005.

Civil Society Watch activist website

The CIVICUS Civil Society Watch (CSW) programme has launched its new activist website at http://www.civilsocietywatch.org to further the programme’s aim of mobilizing quick, principled and effective responses to events that threaten civil society’s fundamental rights to collectively express, associate and organize. The website features ‘Action Alerts’ of situations where civil society is under threat, and ‘Take Action’ campaigns where users are encouraged to participate. They can vote on issues relating to threats to civil society and post their comments and suggestions in the Community section. The Library section has publications and articles for those undertaking civil society-related research.

Award for World Assembly CD-ROM

The CIVICUS World Assembly CD-Rom, which documents this year’s assembly in Gaborone, Botswana, has won the Bronze Multimedia Award at the First Idealist Non-Profit Design Awards in New York. Produced by design company 33 Degrees Interactive, it features PDFs of key speeches, videos of speakers and photo-collages of events.

For further information on the JFC, see http://www.civicus.org or contact Ian Plaskett, CIVICUS Research and Policy Analyst at ian@civicus.org

To visit the CSW activist website, go to http://www.civilsocietywatch.org

For more information about CIVICUS, contact Florence Kiff, Communications  Manager.

CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
CIVICUS House, 24 Pim Corner Quinn Sts, Newtown, 2001 Johannesburg, South Africa
Tel+27 11 833 5959
Fax +27 11 833 7997
Email florence@civicus.org
Website http://www.civicus.org