In our often divided world, one place where all of humankind is invited to come together to work for the common good is the United Nations. Despite its limitations, the UN system is our most effective tool for uniting with others in order to create and implement policies that secure a life of dignity for all of God’s children.
Article 71 of the Charter of the United Nations reads: “The Economic and Social Council [ECOSOC] may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence.”
Based on this article, two of the Maryknoll branches (the Maryknoll Sisters and the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers) have Consultative Status with ECOSOC, and the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns carries out the work of implementing this status. Our work with the UN aims to influence its agenda and is done by:
Maryknoll missioners serve as NGO representatives to the United Nations in New York where they bring the Maryknoll mission experience to important conversations with policymakers and civil society members from around the world.
The UN member states adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which set out a 15-year plan to achieve the goals. The SDGs focus global efforts on lifting people out of extreme poverty, while also addressing the challenges of ensuring more equitable development and environmental sustainability, especially the key goal of curbing the dangers of human-induced climate change. Today, progress is being made in many places, but, overall, action to meet the goals is not yet advancing at the speed or scale required. At the core of the 2020-2030 decade is the need for action to tackle growing poverty, empower women and girls, and address the climate emergency.
Maryknoll representatives to the UN work to promote peace, social justice and the integrity of creation by organizing their UN participation around the following topics:
The following is a press release from CIDSE on the COP25 negotiations in Madrid. CIDSE is a network of Catholic social justice organizations of which MOGC is a member.
At a Senate Foreign Relations hearing on June 19, Kelly Knight Craft, the current U.S. Ambassador to Canada, and nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was questioned about her hundreds of absences and conflicts of interest related to extensive investments in coal and other fossil fuel industries in light of the UN’s priority focus on combating climate change.
Maryknoll Sister Marvie Misolas reports on the 63rd UN conference on women.
Reducing inequality is a top priority for the UN Social Development Commission.
With the latest reports on climate change from the United Nations and the U.S. government sounding alarms, world leaders have failed to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis.
Maryknoll Sister Marvie L. Misolas reports on the critical issues discussed by world leaders during the annual general debate of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.
Sister Marvie L. Misolas, MM, NGO Representative to the UN for the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, writes about the recent review of six of the 17 sustainable development goals at the United Nations.
UN member states are scheduled to hold their last round of negotiations for the Global Compact for Migration July 9-13 with the goal of producing a final draft document for adoption at the International Migration Conference in Morocco in December.
Despite strong opposition from the nuclear weapon states to last year’s nuclear ban treaty, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and leaders of faith groups are pressing the countries to resume discussions on limiting and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons.
Civil society organizations at the UN concluded their consultations on the proposed “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration” in December with a 15-page report entitled “Ten Acts for the Global Compact.” The report lists actions needed to ensure that human mobility, envisioned as a normal and inescapable fact of life, will be safe and provide migrants with opportunities for human development. The following are excerpts from the report which has been given to UN member nations participating in negotiations scheduled for February to July 2018.
The following article was written by Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns staff member Sr. Marvie Misolas, MM. Sr. Marvie serves as Maryknoll’s representative at the United Nations where the Maryknoll Sisters and the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers have consultative status with the Economic and Social Council.
It has been two years since Brazil was hit with the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history when a dam burst at an iron-ore mine and toxic mud swept over villages and into rivers. Known as the Mariana Disaster, it is now the rallying cry for a UN treaty on transnational corporations and human rights.
Under pressure from nuclear-armed nations that insist a world without nuclear weapons is not possible, a grassroots movement has achieved a UN nuclear ban treaty and a Nobel Peace Prize.
Change the future of migration. Invest in food security and rural development.
Maryknoll Sister Elizabeth (Claris) Zwareva, who represents Maryknoll at the United Nations, reports on the latest efforts at the UN to incorporated intergenerational dialogue in efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Maryknoll Sister Elizabeth Zwareva reports on the negotiations at the United Nations to adopt a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading toward their total elimination.
Deadline is June 1, 2017.
The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns co-organized an event on “Nonviolence as a Style of Politics for Peace” at the UN in New York with the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See and the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, a project of Pax Christi International.
