History

The Citizens' Global Platform

During Helsinki Process a considerable network of cross-sectoral organizations in Tanzania, Brazil, India and Finland was created. It has brought in new actors, paying special attention to marginalized voices, thus strengthening the voice of civil society in the discourse on globalization, and channeling its views into the inter-governmental Helsinki Process and other global processes. It has enabled a dialogue between grassroots and international civil society activists, as well as established a North-South co-operation, while fostering an exchange of views between different stakeholders, including governments. 

As Helsinki Process got to its end, NGOs in Citizens' Global Platform discussed the future activities in autumn 2007 in Dar es Salaam where a review conference of Helsinki Process and a NGO conference of CGP took place. Climate Change and Growth and Development had been the substance of these networks during the years 2007 and 2008 and especially the combination of these topics was producing innovative ideas and concrete future proposals. 

At the same time the long lasting theme of Citizens' Global Platform -Marginalized voices- seemed to be very accurate. The civil society has a strong role in United Nation's decision making in theory. Control and monitoring of the processes is expected to be done by civil society and civil society organizations. However, there is a lack of collaboration between UN, member states and their civil society, and in many cases civil society organisations do not have a possibility to present their views neither in national, nor in international level. Out of these ideas the very first idea of a new project was established.

Starting from the beginning of 2009, the three year programme Citizens' Global Platform has brought together civil society actors in Brazil, India, Tanzania and Finland. The CGP focuses on strengthening the global dialogue on environmental issues and empowering the marginalized groups in political processes. The project culminates in 2012 in the Rio+20 Conference: preparing for the conference as well as reporting and spreading the information about climate processes are CGP's two main goals.

It is obvious that a patient ground work has brought the CGP project international visibility and increased its value. The networks are covering a vast range of people  and the connections with the participant countries' governments have been successfully established. Many new actors internationally have shown interest to the project and its results.