Notes from the UN
2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference
In late October 2024, Blair Nelsen, Waterspirit Executive Director and our UN-NGO Representative, participated in the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia. In December, she joined the Congregation via Zoom to discuss her work at the UN and to provide a recap of COP16.
Financing with Dignity: Aligning Capital and Values for Gender Justice
The UN’s 68th annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68) took place between March 11 and 21 at the UN headquarters in New York. The goal of CSW is to seek equality for women in all areas including health, governance, the workplace, and in economics.
Pope Francis Speaks on Hunger
On June 13, Pope Francis addressed the international community at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). The Pope emphasized that while communication technologies bring us face to face with so many tragic situations, this information overload is gradually leading to the "naturalization" of extreme poverty and hunger.
Migration, Environment and Climate Change
On May 9, the UN held a meeting on “Migration, Environment and Climate Change,” organized by the missions of Bangladesh and France. Presentations were given by five different nation state or organizational partners. Given some of our Congregation’s recent events, the meeting held a lot of interest for us.
UN Orientation
New NGO representatives were given an orientation at the United Nations on March 3-4 at the UN Building at 42th street in New York City. I was joined by another 50, or so, relatively new NGO representatives to learn about our work and how it fit into the work of the UN.