2-4 November 2007

Peninsula Excelsior,
Singapore

INVITATION TO THE ACSC

The 3rd ASEAN Civil
Society Conference (ACSC) shall be held in Singapore on 2-4 November
2007, prior to the holding of the 13^th
ASEAN Summit of Leaders in the same city on the third week of
November 2007. The ACSC is being hosted by the Union Network
International-Asia Pacific Regional Office (UNI-APRO) and
co-organized by the Singapore Local Organizing Committee led by Think
Centre. Regional networks of civil society organizations coming
together under the SAPA (Solidarity for Asian People's Advocacies),
as well as participants to the 1^stACSC (Shah Alam, Malaysia in 2005)
and 2^nd
ACSC (Cebu City, Philippines in 2006) are also co-organizers of the
3^rd
ACSC.

ABOUT THE ACSC

The 1^st
ASEAN Civil Society Conference was an initiative of the Malaysian
government together with the Center for ASEAN Studies of the
Universiti I Technologi Mara (UiTM) in December 2005 just before the
11^th
ASEAN Summit of Leaders held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The main
purpose of the ACSC is to provide a venue for civil society in the
region to come together and to engage the ASEAN heads of state during
their yearly Summit of Leaders. The first ACSC had the first ever
feature of a 15-minute interface between civil society leaders and
ASEAN heads of state.

The 2^nd
ACSC, organized solely by civil society, was held in Cebu City in
December 2006 as the culmination of ACSC national consultation
processes held from September to November 2006 in seven ASEAN member
countries-the Burma-Thai border, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam–where national civil society
groups gathered to consider various proposals and views on issues
confronting the ASEAN, especially the idea of ASEAN integration and
the ASEAN Charter.

The 3^rd
ACSC, again organized by South East Asian civil society
organizations, will be held in Singapore in November 2007. The 3^rd
ACSC will be mainly an ASEAN civil society/social movement event with
interfaces with resource persons from ASEAN Governments, the ASEAN
Secretariat, and CSOs and social movements from outside the ASEAN
region.

ACSC-3 will have
plenaries, concurrent workshops, cultural and multi-media events, a
Quiz, a solidarity night and spaces for independent interactions and
caucuses. There will be a two-panel plenary on Singapore, to increase
civil society understanding of Singapore as a state and Singapore as
a society where communities and groups interact on issues similarly
faced by communities and groups elsewhere in ASEAN. The plenary seeks
to increase dialogue and interaction between civil society groups and
social movements in Singapore and the rest of ASEAN.

Among the objectives of
the 3rd ACSC are:

To enrich and
deepen civil society understanding of ASEAN and regional processes
To take stock of
civil society advocacy and engagement in ASEAN and regional
processes
To provide a
platform to discuss issues of common interest and ways to respond to
those issues
To provide a space
for common strategizing on broadly engaging common issues
To get a mandate
for the ACSC to be a live process and not just a conference or
parallel event to the ASEAN Summit
To adopt a common
declaration and agenda of action for the ACSC that includes
research, advocacy and action
To get a mandate
for the 4^th
ACSC Thailand Host Committee for 2008

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

The organizers of the
3rd ACSC are:

AsiaDHRRA/ Asian
Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas

Focus on the Global South

Forum-Asia

Human Rights Working
Group-Indonesia

MFA/ Migrant Forum in Asia

SEACA/ South East Asian Committee
for Advocacy

Think Center-Singapore

Third World Network

3rd ACSC PROGRAMME

Arrivals: November 1, 2007

DAY 1: November 2, 2007

Opening Ceremonies

Keynote Speeches

Plenary 1: Regionalism
for the People: Building a Social ASEAN

Plenary 2: Where do we
want to go and what do we want to achieve?

Cultural Events

DAY 2: November 3, 2007

Plenary 3: Reclaiming
Spaces: Experiences with advocacy in ASEAN

First Set of Concurrent
Workshops

Plenary 4: Understanding
Singapore, its Place and Role in the ASEAN Region, and the Role for
Civil Society

The ACSC ASEAN Quiz

DAY 3: November 4, 2007

Plenary 5: Where
to with the ASEAN Charter Building Process?

Second Set of Concurrent
Workshops

Plenary 6: Moving
Forward with the ACSC Process

Closing Ceremonies

Solidarity Night

PANEL WORKSHOPS OF
THE 3rd ACSC

There will be two sets
of five (5) concurrent workshops each. Proposals for workshops are
being received by the 3^rd
ACSC Programme Committee through Joy Chavez <[email protected]>

REGISTRATION OF PARTICIPANTS

The 3^rd
ACSC offers a structured space and programme for CSO participants who
can fund their own participation costs. You are invited to register
as a participant. Kindly use the attached registration form for this
purpose and email to [email protected]
or by fax to +63 2 920-6202 on or before 15
October 2007. The organizers will
acknowledge your registration by sending you an acknowledgement form.

THE 3^rd
ACSC VENUE

The 3rd ACSC will be
held at the Peninsula Excelsior, 5
Coleman Street
Singapore 179805, Tel: (+65) 6337 2200.

SPECIAL NOTE ON ACCOMODATIONS &
FLIGHTS

All 3^rd
ACSC participants are expected to fund their own participation. This
means that all accommodations, breakfasts and dinners, flights,
inland transport are expected to be independently funded by
participants' regional CSO networks or your respective
organizations.

REQUEST FOR
ACCOMODATIONS

Accomodations for a
maximum of 100 persons are available at the Peninsula Excelsior.
Please kindly make direct reservations with Mr. Anthony Wong,
UNI-APRO Director for Project and Administration. Kindly use the
attached Request for Accomodations form for this purpose and email to
[email protected]
on or before 15 October 2007.

COST OF PARTICIPATION

Due to the high interest in
participation and overwhelming response of regional and Singapore
civil society on the 3^rd
ACSC, organizers may be unable to provide for a full subsidy for the
conference venue, workshops and food for three days. All participants
are requested to pay a token fee of Singapore $50 to cover costs of
participation (food, conference kit) upon registration at the
Conference venue on 1 November 2007.

———————————————–

For more information on
the 3rd ACSC, please kindly write to any of the following:

SINAPAN SAMYDORAI

3^rd
ACSC Singapore Local Organizing Committee

c/o Think Center

email:
[email protected]

CHRISTOPHER NG or
ANTHONY WONG

3^rd
ACSC Local Host

c/o Union Network
International-APRO

email:
[email protected], [email protected]

CORINNA LOPA

3^rd
ACSC Invitations Committee