Dear Colleagues,
Please find attached the final Terms of Reference (ToR) of the Asia Civil Society Platform on Sustainable development (APSD) for your reference. This has emerged trough a series of consultations beginning with the APSD consultation on August 14 in Bangkok (Holiday Inn Silom) and then discussion among the facilitation group created by all of you who participated in the August consultation. Some of you also gave inputs after the final draft was shared. Separately Doun Moon, the coordinator of ADA and Pradeep Baisakh as the GCAP Asia coordinator shared the draft ToR with the Steering Committee Members of ADA and Member of GCAP respectively for their inputs.
Therefore it has gone through several phases of consultation among the key stake-holders and this is the final form which has emerged. Lets consider this as the basis of the functioning of APSD.
The co-conveners are GCAP Asia, ADA, ADN and World Vision-Asia. Pradeep and Moon are the communication points for the platform. We will work in tandem with the overall guidance of the co-conveners to see that the platform function well and surge ahead with its mandate.
We will coordinate for first meeting of the Co-Conveners meeting to discuss the operational and other key aspects of APSD.
We have created the google platform namely, APSD (E mail: asia-sdgs-platform@googlegroups.com)for sharing information on sustainable development and climate change. Initially all of you who participated in the APSD Bangkok consultation are in the list. We will eventually bring the larger members of CSOs into the list.
Please get the ToR here.
Sincerely,
Pradeep Baisakh and Doun Moon |
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Asia Civil Society Partnership for Sustainable Development
(APSD)
Terms of Reference (ToR)
Identities:
? APSD is an open, inclusive and independent civil society platform of CSOs/NGO, social and grassroots movements in Asia, engaged in advocacy on issues related to sustainable development specially implementation of UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs in short)
? APSD is a regional civil society platform where CSOs engaged in different SDG goals or targets to share the experiences of engagement to promote inter-national, cross-sectoral cooperation overcoming silos and fragmentation.
? APSD is a regional civil society network of CSOs that are involved in the global platform on SDGs such as A4SD (Action for Sustainable Development), Together 2030, TAP Network (Transparency, Accountability and Participation ), etc. in order to engage proactively global platforms and inter-governmental mechanisms as well as national governments.
Vision:
? A world free from poverty, inequality, injustice, conflicts and violence as well as climate crisis and where all human rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.
Mission:
1. Our mission is to strengthen voices of the grassroots movements, people’s organisations and civil society groups with regards to the implementation of sustainable development agenda that promotes inclusive and equitable socio-economic and ecological transformation in the Asia Region and beyond bypromoting intra-national, international and inter-sectorial cooperation and people-to-people solidarity as well as advocating the voices of the most neglected section of society resulting from social economic causes and geographical isolation.
Objectives:
2. To create and provide space for information-sharing and critical thinking and analysis about sustainable development and climate change,
3. To create and enhancing existing space for networking and coalition-building for cross-fertilization of ideas and mutual learning among sub-national, national and international CSOs,
4. To facilitate capacity-building on issues related SDGs and climate change
5. To facilitate advocacy on SDGs and climate change related issues by engagingwith regional and global mechanisms like Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD), UN High-level Political Forum (HLPF), ASEAN, SAARC, etc. in cooperation with the existing organizations and networks.
Membership and Governance:
Membership:
? APSD’s membership is open to any CSOs, networks, alliances, federations or coalitions that agree to the mission and objectives and are willing to work in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation.
? All CSOs from Asia, especially members of global CSO platforms on SDGs such as A4SD, Together 2030, TAP Network, etc. are invited to the APSD.
? Interested CSOs can become a member through online registration.
? Membership registration is to be set up soon for online registration.
? Irrespective of membership the platform will be open for participation by any members of civil society in its annual forum and working groups
Governance:
? The governance structure is composed of Annual General Forum, Co-conveners, Working Groups, Steering Committee (SC), and Communication Focal Point (Interim Secretariat) .
Annual Meeting – Annual General Forum
The first annual meeting of APSD is to be held in last week of May or first week of June 2017.
This is between the UNESCAP’s Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) (Bangkok, early April 2017) and the UN High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on SDGs (New York, middle of July 2017)
Co-conveners:
? Co-conveners are a group of international (Global/Regional) CSOs, which are committed to facilitating / coordinating common activities of the APSD and the organization of the Annual General Forum.
? The proposed members of the Co-conveners for 2016-2017 are as follows;
Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP)-Asia,
Asia Development Alliance (ADA)
Asia Democracy Network (ADN)
World Vision-Asia.
Each convening organisation/campaign will designate one person as its representative for the convening role.
The Co-Conveners will be accountable to the Steering Group.
Working Group:
? Various working groups on different themes and tasks will be created as a facilitating platform for policy advocacy, mobilization and campaign, capacity building.
? Any member can initiate the formation of working group with like-minded members and develop their own ToR taking into account their own needs and demands.
? One member can joint multiple working groups depending on its own interest and capacity.
? Initially the following four working group are being created:
1. Children – To be coordinated by World Vision-Asia
2. Inequality – To be coordinated by GCAP-Asia
3. SDG 16 – To be coordinated by ADN
4. Inter-faith cooperation – To be coordinated by Act Alliance
5. Rural Development (Food security and climate change etc) – To becoordinated by AsiaDHRRA
? In every two years the group will decide on the anchor organisation for coordination.
Steering Group:
? There will be a steering group consisting of the co-conveners and one representative from each working group to be set up.
? This group will give general strategic directions to the APSD
? It will meet physically in February each year and strategize the engagement of APSD with UNESCAP and HLPF
? It may meet virtually as frequently as possible whenever necessary
Communication focal points (Interim Secretariat):
? Pradeep Baisakh, GCAP-Asia, e mail id: pradeep.baisakh@whiteband.org
? Doun MOON, ADA, e mail id: ada2030.secretariat@gmail.com |
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Annexure: Background of formation of APSD:
? Asia Civil Society Partnership on Sustainable Development (APSD) is a result of the regional consultation meeting held in Bangkok on 14 August 2016 convened by Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP)-Asia and Asia Development Alliance (ADA) and attended by about 30 local, national and international CSOs. (List of participating CSOs attached)
? The Bangkok consultation meeting was held as a regional follow-up to the global consultation process, more specifically founding meeting of the “Action for Sustainable Development (A4SD)” (Bogota, Colombia on 29 April 2016) and follow-up consultation meeting (New York, 16-17 July 2016). However it may be noted that the proposed APSD is independent of any global processes.
? During the Bangkok consultation on 14 August 2016, a Facilitation Group was formed to prepare for an organizational document / Terms of Reference (ToR) regarding identity, mission and goals/objectives, membership and governance, main activities, etc.
Facilitation Group:
(This group will cease to exist after it submits the final ToR)
Attachment: ToR of APSD 27 Sept 16.docx
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