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The “Civil G8” intends to raise the citizens belief in their own forces

01.01.70

09.06.06

”Russian citizens are not active? – When the life touches them on the raw, they are! The most important is to help them to organize their forces”. Ella Pamfilova, the “Civil G8-2006” coordinator consider it the main aim of the International NGOs Forum, which is to be held in Moscow.

The Forum will take place in July, 3-4 in Moscow. Ella Pamfilova expects the participation of about 500 people, two third of them coming from abroad, particularly, from not G8 member states – for example, from Latin America, having “the same problems as we do”.

Why the Forum is to be held in Moscow? First the Russian NGOs planned to unit the participants in St Petersburg on the eve of the G8 summit. But then they decided to avoid the crowd and to meet earlier to have enough time to prepare documents and to pass them to G8 leaders, for they could include them into discussion.

Officially such items, important not only for Russia, as the human rights within the context of fighting terrorism, the migrants adaptation and socialization, counteraction of the civil society with the officials, ecology and energy effectiveness are not included into the G8 agenda. But the G8 participants hope to be heard by the G8.

“Don’t consider our activities as meetings of people having much time to fight for some general human ideals”, - joked the Forum participant Leonid Grigoriev. His colleague Serguei Tsyplenkov, the Director of Greenpeace-Russia, added that it is possible that “one of our recommendations will be included into the official agenda of the next G8 summit in Germany”. According to Ella Pamfilova the active cooperation with the German colleagues is being developed”. Accordingly, the formulating such item will be one of the aims of the July civil Forum.

The Russian participants stress that the Forum will be held within the framework of the G8. The NGOs participating in the Forum are quite different – those supporting the authorities, those criticizing them sharply etc. But the most important is their readiness for work. How optimistic are they in considering their work today and their prospects?

”The officials have to understand, that the NGOs are their partners in implementing national projects”, - says Ella Pamfilova. According to her, it is important to share opinions with the foreign colleagues who could teach our citizens to organize themselves and to believe in their own possibilities to act. Serguei Tsyplenkov is not so much optimistic – he thinks that the new law regulating NGOs activities gives the local authorities the opportunity to use the juridical norms selectively and decide what NGO is worth registering or not. But even if this or that NGO is already registered their activities become very complicated because of the new system of accounting.

Igor Chestin, the Director of WWF-Russia expressed the “centrist” opinion. “Everything depends on us”, - he said gloomily but firmly.

Expert opinion

Halter Marek

02.12.06

Halter Marek
Le College de France
Olivier Giscard d’Estaing

02.12.06

Olivier Giscard d’Estaing
COPAM, France
Mika Ohbayashi

02.12.06

Mika Ohbayashi
Institute for Sustainable Energy Poliñy
Bill Pace

02.12.06

Bill Pace
World Federalist Movement - Institute for Global Policy
Peter I. Hajnal

01.12.06

Peter I. Hajnal
Toronto University, G8 Research Group


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