NGOs agree to set up coordination team

Some 200 NGOs in the Central African Republic (CAR) have agreed to set up a team to coordinate all activities undertaken by their organisations, an official told IRIN on Saturday. The decision to form the team was made at the end of a meeting of the NGOs, dubbed the "social forum", held from 6 to 9 January in the capital, Bangui. "The forum adopted a declaration creating a coordinating body and called for a general assembly of civil society to elect the executive board," Lambert Zokoezo, the chairman of the forum, said. Zokoezo, who is also chairman of a local human rights body, the Observatoire Centrafricain des Droits de l’Homme, said the coordination of all interests had become urgent to enable civil society to engage in the drafting of a new CAR constitution, the revision of the electoral code and in the organisation of elections due later this year. The call for the formation of the forum was made by the rights body, together with the women lawyers’ association, the Association des Femmes Juristes Centrafricaines; and a Roman Catholic charity for children, the Mouvement d’Apostolat des Enfants, also known as MIDADE. Zokoezo said the forum, which was sponsored by the French-based Comite Catholique de Lutte contre la Faim et le developpement, was organised in preparation for the World Social Forum due to take place in Mumbai (Bombay), India, from 16 to 21 January. In a speech marking the closing of the social forum on Friday, Zokoezo said civil society would involve itself in talks with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, a delegation of which is expected in Bangui in coming weeks. Civil society has delegates in the government and in the National Transitional Council, the country's law advisory body, and was represented in the September-October 2003 national dialogue. Zokoezo said the NGOs coordination body would include federations of labour unions, women’s non-political organisations, youth and religious organisations as well as farmers’ cooperatives.