Boosting the U.N. from bottom-up, not from top-down

Since my election as president of the World Federation of United Nations Associations Aug. 11, some people have wondered what this organization stands for and what its relations are with the United Nations. This is understandable as another Korean, Ban Ki-moon, serves as secretary general of the world body.

In short, WFUNA is a global network of peoples linked through the national U.N. associations in more than one hundred countries, dedicated to supporting the work of the United Nations. Founded in 1946, a year after the launching of the United Nations, it was ahead of its time in articulating a vision of people's movement in support of the U.N. WFUNA seeks to assist the U.N. in addressing the pressing and complex challenges facing the world, through support programs, public outreach activities and education. Its creation was inspired by the opening words of the U.N. Charter, "We the peoples... of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war...."

A world network of enlightened civil organizations provides a powerful impetus to defining and debating global issues, and to building consensus for resolving conflicts or mitigating the impact of multiple crises confronting the world. In this age of the internet-driven revolutions and Twitter-based spread of information, as demonstrated in recent political upheavals in Iran and Myanmar, today it is the common people who more often than not determine the shape of debate on global issues, whether they are climate change or nuclear proliferation.

Across the world today, the role of civil society has become so important that no nation can alone dictate or dominate the global agenda. Cutting-edge communications and market integration have broken the barriers of borders, bringing a swift flow of pandemics like H1N1 flu or ripples of financial meltdown on the Wall Street. From issues like climate change to human rights to migrant labor, no country -- developed or developing -- can escape from being almost instantly affected by the so-called "problems without passport." War, famine, genocide or bad governance in one country swiftly affects the sentiments and well-being of people in another country. Economic or political health in one country offers no protection against spillover of instability from another country.

At the recent plenary assembly of the World Federation of United Nations Associations held in Seoul a few weeks ago, managing the problem of such ripple effects was a major consideration when the U.N. secretary general strongly called for a renewed multilateralism in dealing with these global problems.

Ban, referring to U.N. associations' activities at the popular level, declared that "change comes not from top-down but from bottom-up," meaning that initiatives for change should come from peoples and communities of the world, "not from the world capitals," meaning the national governments. He agrees that the power of people's movement provides vital support to the U.N.'s efforts in coming to grips with threats facing the wellbeing of mankind. In this regard, he rightly called the U.N. associations as "the U.N.'s best face" to the world - "being intelligent, engaged, committed and strong," an irreplaceable champion of the U.N. at the grassroots.

With more than 100 U.N. associations around the globe, WFUNA has a unique role to play in coming to grips with new challenges as well as the traditional ones troubling the world. The theme of the Seoul plenary assembly -- "Global Citizens for the U.N." - reflects our overriding mission to bring the U.N. closer to people in our individual member countries, as their support is crucial for achieving the goals the U.N. has set for itself. This is why the Global Citizen Campaign stresses the value of investing in our youths with more education and engagement so that they can grow to be the future leaders and global citizens. They will be the major actors of the global community in the 21st century embracing the ideals of the United Nations.

To support WFUNA's institutional growth and the work of the United Nations, WFUNA has programs like "students for a nuclear weapons-free world" aimed at encouraging young people to learn more about the threats of nuclear weapons, a "human rights clearing house" designed to help better implement human rights standards at all levels, and a scheme to encourage a wider participation by African students in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction. WFUNA's global and regional model U.N. conferences, seminars and campaigns in collaboration with U.N. agencies are likewise intended to educate and engage the youth with the U.N.

A vigorous implementation of these programs requires a strong financial basis. Thus one urgent aim of the Global Citizen Campaign 2009-12 launched in Seoul is to raise a significant amount of money during this period. Serious efforts will be made to organize support groups, such as the Friends of WFUNA in the United States, in as many U.N. member countries as possible and seek contributions from the business community as well as governments.

Increasing civil society involvement with the U.N. is critical to meeting global challenges and WFUNA, as an authoritative non-governmental movement, seeks to combine education and action to help shape the U.N. agenda and bring the U.N. closer to the real concerns and interests of the people in the 21st century world. By doing so, it hopes to generate public pressure and support from the bottom-up to influence governments' public policies, so as to advance more energetically the cause of the United Nations. Thus our job is to boost the U.N. from the bottom up, as Ban has aptly described it.

Park Soo-gil, a former Korean ambassador to the United Nations, is president of the World Federation of United Nations Associations. -- Ed.