Prior to the G8 Summit in St Petersburg, Russia, from 15th to 17th July, a Civil G8 NGO Forum was held in Moscow from 3rd to 4th July. This year is the first time for Russia to chair the G8 Summit, and it showed strong support to the NGOs and civil society.

Around 700 NGOs were represented, with 300 from overseas. This is the first time a G8 Summit host nation has financially assisted international NGO representatives to attend since civil society was first documented officially in the communique at the G8 summit in Halifax, Canada in 1995.

Ella Pamfilova as Chairperson for the Council for the Development of Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights coordinated the Civil G8 meeting.

At the Civil G8 with President Putin in attendance

The Civil G8 discussed nine topics, including energy security, education, HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases, and human rights. The recommendations from the meeting were presented to the G8 Summit.

President Putin participated in the reporting from the each panel of the Civil G8 NGO Forum and spent two hours commenting on the summary report and answering questions from the floor.

Russia’s performance to assist NGO participation in the Civil G8 NGO Forum, and President Putin’s involvement reflect growing recognition of the value on the NGO and civil society has in economic and development issues, and the social influence that civil society can potentially wield.

As Russia is becoming economically more powerful, it is more in a position to extend support to developing countries. The inclusion of NGO and civil society is seen as being very welcome since financial resource alone cannot solve issues of the developing countries and their development. The expertise and experience that NGOs have are needed to achieve global development aims.

The G7 NGO Network Meeting, an alliance of the largest NGO networks from the G7 nations, met in parallel with the G8 Summit, and issued a joint statement through the international channels. As there is no Russian network NGOs joined, they were not included in the statement.

Hideyuki Takahashi, Director, Resource Development and Campaign, JOICFP, took part in the Civil G8 NGO Forum and G7 Network Meeting as representing G7 NGO Alliance Committee of Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (JANIC) to represent Japan and vice-chair of JANIC.

A full set of final documents issued by the Civil G8 Forum can be found here.

Photographs of the Civil G8 Forum can be found here at the official Civil G8 website.

In 2008, Japan will host the G8 Summit, giving it an opportunity to take the initiative in international issues. It is now time for the Japanese government to put forward its position as questions remain on its attitude to the value of civil society in the world in the face of declining ODA.