TBILISI, GEORGIA—The World Federation of United Nations Association (WFUNA) held its 43rd Plenary Assembly in Tbilisi, Georgia, from 7-10 November 2023 with 40 UNAs in attendance. The theme of the Plenary Assembly was “Partnerships for Impact”.
Hosted by the United Nations Association of Georgia (UNA-Georgia), the Plenary Assembly included Capacity Building Sessions, Roundtables, Panel Discussions, and networking events. The session was opened by WFUNA’s President, Shawn Chen, who stressed that “it is now more important than ever that we find opportunities to collaborate, both between each other, but also with other civil society organisations, the UN, academic, and the private sector.”
During its first day, the Plenary Assembly dealt with WFUNA’s internal matters, and admitted 8 new UNAs to the Federation, namely UNA-Bolivia, UNA-Ethiopia, UNA-Indonesia, UNA-Mali, UNA-Mongolia, UNA-North Macedonia, UNA-Poland, and UNA-Portugal. This was followed by a detailed overview by WFUNA’s new Secretary-General, Aziel Philippos Goulandris, of WFUNA’s Activity Report 2019-2023, which can be found here.
In parallel to the Plenary Assembly, UNAs participated in various capacity-building sessions and held regional meetings to discuss how they can strengthen their collaboration. Youth Delegates held a series of separate meetings and elected the 4th WFUNA Youth Advisory Council.
The Plenary Assembly concluded its business by adopting the Tbilisi Declaration and 9 resolutions, focusing on transparency and inclusiveness at the United Nations, the need for peaceful resolution of international conflicts, climate change, food security and the rights of refugees and migrants.
The WFUNA Plenary Assembly’s host, UNA-Georgia, held a parallel conference alongside the main event to allow UNAs to engage more directly with the UN system and Civil Society. The “Partnerships for Impact Conference” was attended by over 70 speakers and more than 250 participants. The conference provided insights on a wide range of issues, such as Partnerships for Education, Gender Equality, Inclusive Growth, and Health and Innovation.
WFUNA expresses its gratitude to UNA-Georgia for hosting an outstanding event that contributed greatly to the reinforcement of our network and commends all UNAs that attended and provided valuable input to the proceedings of the 43rd Plenary Assembly. We look forward to the 44th edition which was decided to be held at the Geneva Headquarters of the Federation in 2026.
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