National Civil Society Conference 2017 held in Nepal
NGO Federation of Nepal (NFN), a common platform of civil society organizations actively working in the forefront towards promoting advocacy, social mobilization, citizens' empowerment and civic participation for socio-economic transformation, development and national unity, has accomplished its 23rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) alongside the National Civil Society Conference 2017 on 7-8 November 2017, in Kathmandu.
Honorable Mr. Kalyan Shrestha, former Chief Justice of Supreme Court of Nepal was the chief guest for the Conference. NFN district chapters, NFN CSOs member from all over countries, federations, alliances, networks, INGOs, embassies including government officers and prominent leaders of civil society movements and human rights campaigns in Nepal, attended the AGM and Conference.
Conference starts with the inauguration. In inauguration session chief guest, some advisors and guests from federation, alliances, network, INGOs, and UNRC expressed their views and opinions with best wishes for NFN. They also reaffirmed their commitment to work together, work hand in hand for the development of CSOs, protection of Human Rights, and for the Development of Nation.
After the inauguration of the program, three parallel thematic sessions were organized. The sessions were: i) Ensuring Access to WASH for Sustainable Development (Goal 6), ii) Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institution) and iii) Dialogue on Enabling CSOs in Changing Political Context.
Session 1: Ensuring Access to WASH for Sustainable Development (Goal 6) - several dimensions of the current situation, policy status and future needs were assessed in the session. The roles and responsibilities of donor agencies, government of Nepal, CSOs and other stakeholders were analyzed and the session emphasized on “capacity building” and “collectivity” on working modalities. The session ends with the suggestions like; the issue of climate change and natural hazards must be tackled, exploitation of water resources and wetlands must be checked and natural environment should be preserved, evil market forces needs to be scrutinized by state and coordination of CSOs with local government is a must in dealing with the issue.
Session 2: Challenges on effective implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institution). The main highlights of this session was peace, stability, human rights and effective governance, based on rule of law which is important conduits for sustainable development. The session focused on current challenges of Nepal and the solutions that can help to overcome those challenges. The session also focused on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims like; significantly reduce all forms of violence, and work with governments and communities to find lasting solutions to conflict and insecurity. The session come up with the point that if we want to achieve SDG 16  we should work on strengthening the rule of law and promoting human rights, reducing the flow of illicit arms and strengthening the institutions of global (global and local) governance.
Session 3: Dialogue on Enabling CSOs in Changing Political Context- the issues addressed in this session revolved around the new role, responsibility and authority of CSOs in changing political environment in Nepal. The key issues included in the session were, structure and role of Social Welfare Council (SWC) in coming future, need for clear policies, legal frameworks for CSOs at national to local levels in Constitution, importance of coordination between SWC, various ministries, NGOs, INGOs and other stakeholders, effective collaboration and management of NGOs and INGOs to achieve SDGs, importance and benefits of information management at various levels and targeted at different stakeholders and awareness campaigns and  concern about INGOs leaving Nepal in coming future and what can we do to prevent this? Session was interactive between speaker and participants. They come up with some recommendations like; government should appreciate the contribution of CSOs and facilitate them to operate more easily in new federal system, political influence in CSO sector should not exist and Social Welfare Council should be restructured and it should represent CSOs.
At the end of the National Civil Society Conference NFN endorse 16 points DECLARATION to call for and reaffirm commitments to the full-fledged implementation of constitution of Nepal as well as to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by means of active and strong civic engagement.