GEN at United Nations

GEN's activities at UN level in 2003:

January 2003:

Representatives of GEN in NY met with UN Assistant Secretary General Chen, who presides over the General Assembly, to provide an in-depth brief on ecovillage development worldwide.


January 2003:

GEN joined the Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP), part of the UNDP/World Bank ESMAP Program. GVEP seeks to reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development through the accelerated provision of modern energy services to unserved or underserved. This is made possible through a partnership of developing and industrialized country governments, international development agencies, donor organizations, private firms, consumers, NGOs and others committed to addressing energy-poverty.


February 2003:

GEN-UNITAR Ecovillage Training program hosted over 30 participants from the following countries: Thailand, India, Spain, Canary Islands, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, USA, Turkey, England, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Alaska, and Scotland. In the face of growing poverty and increasing environmental degradation of the planet, the UN, through its different agencies and programs is generating a sense of urgency, commitments for action, and partnerships to achieve measurable results. This training addresses the urgent call of our times of bringing economy back home, promoting local diversity and creating a more just, equitable, empowered world, which aims at the eradication of poverty in a broader sense and the vital consolidation of sustainability on Earth.


During 2003:

GEN in partnership with the Ecovillage Training Center in the United States hosted participants from Israel, Palestine, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Hungary, Ghana, S. Korea and the USA for training along the lines of the UNITAR program.
March 2003: May East, representing GEN, signed an agreement for the establishment of a CIFAL Collaborative Training Center in Curitiba for the Latin America and The Caribbean Region on Sustainable Urbanisation: a UN Public-Private WSSD Initiative Type 2 Partnership for and with Local Authorities. The agreement was signed by UNITAR, CIFAL, the City of Curitiba, Brazil, universities, NGOs, and private sector partners. A training program “Sustainable Cities” has been conceived for local officials in the field of access to essential services and the professions of sustainable development in order to promote sustainable urbanization.


April 2003:

GEN facilitated the visa application process for the fledgling ecovillage movement in rural China, enabling China to send a delegation to CSD-11 in NY and to host a side-event there. GEN sent 4 representatives to the CSD and hosted its own sideevent.
June 2003: GEN sent two of its UN representatives to Rome to meet with Eve Crowley, FAO SARD program manager, and a representative from the International Fund for Agricultural Development. GEN was invited to participate in SARD’s IFAD/NGO Extended Cooperation Program (ECP) and has been engaged in providing its expertise and developing proposals for action since then.


September 2003:

A delegation of four members represented GEN in the 56th Annual DPI/NGO Conference at the UN Headquarters, New York. Theme of the Conference: “Human Security and Dignity: Fulfilling the Promise of the UN”. October 2003: As a contribution to the UN International Year of Freshwater (2003), GEN coordinated and cosponsored with the Earth Values Caucus a day of events focused on water: Water of Life: Fresh Perspectives on the World’s Water Crisis, at the UN Headquarters in New York City. The purpose of the day long event was to emphasize the intrinsic value of water as part of the interdependent web of life and to give inspiring examples of new approaches and solutions to global water management crises. Water issues were reviewed from government, UN, NGO and technical perspectives. Art, music and ceremony were also included. The event was attended by about 300 people.

October 2003:   As a contribution to the UN International Year of Freshwater (2003), GEN coordinated and cosponsored with the Earth Values Caucus and the Findhorn Foundation a day of events focused on water: Water of Life: Fresh Perspectives on the World’s Water Crisis, at the UN Headquarters in New York City.   The purpose of the day long event was to emphasize the intrinsic value of water as part of the interdependent web of life and to give inspiring examples of new approaches and solutions to global water management crises. Water issues were reviewed from government, UN, NGO and technical perspectives. Art, music and ceremony were also included. The event was attended by about 300 people.

November 2003:   As a contribution to the UN International Year of Freshwater (2003), GEN coordinated and cosponsored with the Earth Values Caucus and the Findhorn Foundation a day of events focused on water: Water of Life: Fresh Perspectives on the World’s Water Crisis, at the UN Headquarters in New York City.   The purpose of the day long event was to emphasize the intrinsic value of water as part of the interdependent web of life and to give inspiring examples of new approaches and solutions to global water management crises. Water issues were reviewed from government, UN, NGO and technical perspectives. Art, music and ceremony were also included. The event was attended by about 300 people.

A GEN representative delivered a session on “Ecovillages-Last Frontiers for Sustainability” to 30 urban planners and mayors from 12 Latin American countries as part of the UN Local Capacity-Building and Training for Sustainable Urbanisation program. Launched as a public-private sector initiative at the WSSD in Johannesburg in 2002, the Sustainable Cities initiative provides training of mayors and other local government officials in the principles and practice of urban sustainability.

GEN in partnership with the Ecovillage Training Center in the United States hosted participants from UK, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Bangladesh, Congo, Uruguay, Brazil, Germany and the USA for training along the lines of the Findhorn UNITAR program. This was the sixth annual program of this type at the Ecovillage Training Center since 1994.


August 2000:

A delegation of eight members represented GEN in the 53rd Annual DPI/NGO Conference at the UN Headquarters, New York. Theme of the Conference: “Global Solidarity: The Way to Peace and International Cooperation”. GEN sponsored the midday side-event “Ecovillages: Providing a Model for Sustainable Living and Global Solidarity.”


October 2000:

UNESCO agreed to institutionally endorse the international conference “Spirit of Learning: Soul in Education,” under GEN auspices, which intended to strengthen the international collective effort toward an education containing universal values. We were authorised to use the International Year for the Culture of Peace logo in our printed materials and we were very pleased to host amongst our presenters Ms Ibtissam Al Bassam, Director of Teachers Section at UNESCO, and Mr. Alfredo Sfeir-Younis, Director of the World Bank in Geneva.
October 2000: The Ecovillage Network of the Americas, a charter member of GEN, provided training workshops in natural building, appropriate technology and sustainable village design to war refugee populations in rural Colombia.

Download: "Quadrennial Report GEN for ECOSOC" (212kb pdf)

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