On 23 September, Mr Sergey Ryabkov, Russias BRICS Sherpa, Deputy Minister of
Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, chaired the inaugural session of BRICS
Civil Forum 2020 in Moscow. The three days of the Forum are expected to gather both in online and offline format up to 400 representatives of civil society, non-profit organizations, foundations, authorities, socially-oriented businesses, media and academic experts from the BRICS countries, who will
participate in the plenary sessions of 8 Civil BRICS Forum Working Groups: Food and Healthcare; Education and
Science; Economic Development in the Digital Era; Information Strategies and
Society; Environment, Climate and Energy; Sustainable Cities and Rural
Development; Women and Girls; and People-to-People
Exchanges.
Within a decade,
BRICS has come a long way from an informal venue for exchanging views on
current issues on the international agenda to an absolutely mature and stable
network of multilateral interaction on the diverse issues on the international
and domestic agendas of the five countries. This year, the year of the 75th anniversary of Great Victory in the Great Patriotic War and the 75th year since the establishment
of the UN, the voice of solidarity
of the BRICS nations is needed in the international arena like
never before. We advocate and will continue advocating the enhancement of the
democratic foundations of a multipolar world order, which rests on a mutual respect for the legitimate
interests of all countries and peoples, and unconditional compliance with the
principles of international law, including the UN Charter. We are confident
that we will be able to effectively face todays challenges through a
collective effort by matching our national measures and our capabilities,"
Sergey Ryabkov noted.
The Forum participants were also greeted by co-chairs
of the BRICS Civil Forum Victoria Panova, Managing Director of the National
Committee on BRICS Research, Scientific Supervisor of the BRICS Russia Expert
Council and Vice-President for
International Relations of the Far Eastern Federal University, and Alyona Peryshkina, Head of the AIDS Infoshare foundation and co-chair of BRICS & G20 Russian NGOs Working Group.
«The Civil Forum
does not adhere to the themes of the official BRICS track. However, most of the themes of the Forum overlap with the priorities of our BRICS Chairmanship, which shows that the themes of the official track are relevant to the
peoples of the BRICS nations. A lack of constructive dialogue with the
authorities often leads to disastrous consequences of which our contemporary history has
numerous examples. The Civil Forum sees its mission in promoting this dialogue
and adequately representing public demands,» Victoria Panova said.
According to
Alyona Peryshkina, «The novel coronavirus pandemic has revealed the importance
of civil societys participation in a dialogue with a respective government of any
country to overcome new challenges in a prompt and efficient way. The BRICS countries
public organisations and individual activists are involved and effectively carry
out the initiatives aimed at helping the segments of the population hardest hit
by COVID-19. These include volunteer movements such as medical volunteer programmes
to help patients and assist medical staff; they include participating in vaccine
research and testing; support for compatriots who were caught out of the
country during border closings; NGOs, media and researchers involvement in
information and prevention educational campaigns; help with NGO participation
in pursuing the development of BRICS friends countries in Central Asia,
Eastern Europe and the Global South countries. All these joint efforts of civil society helped to slow the spread of the virus under the most complicated conditions and to
strengthen government measures to combat the pandemic and its impacts.»
The inaugural session was followed by the plenary
session «Post COVID-19 Era: Pooling Efforts and Resources for Maximizing BRICS Progress on SDGs. The Role of Civil Society.» The participants
discussed the reports presented by Vladimir Kuznetsov, Russia, Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Moscow; artist Vik Muniz, Brazil, UNESCO
Goodwill Ambassador; Samir Saran, India, President of Observer Research Foundation (ORF); Ai Ping, China, Vice-President of the Chinese
Association for International Understanding, Jane Mufamadi, South Africa, co-chair of the People-to-People Exchanges Working Group
of the BRICS Civil Forum and CEO of the Freedom Park, a heritage memorial
complex.
For detailed information go to www.civilbrics.ru
The Roscongress Foundation, a socially oriented non-financial
development institution and a major organiser of
international conventions, congress, exhibitions, business, social and
sporting, public, and cultural events, is in charge of organising events as part of the Russian Federations
chairmanship in the BRICS association.
Official website of the Russian Federations chairmanship: brics-russia2020.ru.