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 13th
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 1st
ACSC (Shah Alam, Malaysia in 2005)
and 2nd
ACSC (Cebu City, Philippines in 2006) are also co-organizers of the
3rd
ACSC.
ABOUT THE ACSC
The 1st
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
11th
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 2nd
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 3rd
ACSC, again organized by South East Asian civil society
organizations, will be held in Singapore in November 2007. The 3rd
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 4th
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 3rd
ACSC Programme Committee through Joy Chavez <[email protected]>
REGISTRATION OF PARTICIPANTS
The 3rd
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 3rd
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 3rd
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 3rd
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
3rd
ACSC Singapore Local Organizing Committee
c/o Think Center
email:
[email protected]
CHRISTOPHER NG or
ANTHONY WONG
3rd
ACSC Local Host
c/o Union Network
International-APRO
email:
[email protected], [email protected]
CORINNA LOPA
3rd
ACSC Invitations Committee
c/o SEACA, 29-D Mayaman
Street, UP Village, Quezon City 1101, Philippines
email: [email protected]
