UNITED NATIONS: When more than a million demonstrators jammed the streets of London, Berlin, Paris and New York in February last year protesting the imminent US-led military attack on Iraq, the New York Times raved about the growing power of the global anti-war movement.

The massive demonstrations proved that there were two superpowers in the world, the Times declared, "the United States and world public opinion". The same month, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who agreed with the Times' characterisation, appointed a panel of 12 eminent persons to assess the role of civil society and find ways to strengthen its future relations with the United Nations.

The panel, headed by former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, released an 83-page report on Monday concluding that "global civil society now wields real power in the name of citizens".

The study says the world is now witnessing a new phenomenon - "global public opinion - that is shaping the political agenda and generating a cosmopolitan set of norms and citizen demands that transcend national boundaries."

Phyllis Bennis of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies told IPS that it is a good move for the United Nations to take more initiative in supporting civil society, especially in the global south.

But the most important aspect of the UN-civil society relationship, she argued, is shaped by the question of power. "The UN charter begins with the words 'We the peoples' - but unfortunately, that commitment has never been implemented, and the United Nations remains the province of governments," she added.

In this period of power so concentrated in one member of the United Nations, the United States, the UN's most important role will be as an ally of civil society, along with a variety of governments, in building the global challenge to unilateralism and war.

Bennis said that relationship was perhaps most visible in February last year, at the moment of internationally co-ordinated demonstrations in 655 cities around the globe when "the world said no to war".

"That kind of link between the United Nations and civil society will insure the UN's clearest relevance," she added. In a series of recommendations, the Cardoso panel has called for the creation of a new UN under-secretary-general to head an Office of Constituency Engagement and Partnerships that will liaise between civil society and the world body.

Jim Paul of Global Policy Forum, a New York-based think tank that closely monitors the United Nations, welcomed the proposal to appoint a senior official to handle relations with NGOs.

He said the NGO community had made a similar recommendation to the United Nations as far back as 1999. "It was a proposal that was widely canvassed among NGOs. We actually expected the panel to recommend it," he told IPS.

"With so much going on in the worldwide NGO movement, we needed to centralise the whole thing. And we needed somebody who would see the whole picture. So the proposal to create an under- secretary-general is really great," Paul added.

Still, he remained guarded about his support for the proposal because he was told that "civil society would encompass both NGOs and the business community". "If that is the intent, we are opposed to it," he said. The term "civil society," he pointed out, has always been a slippery term because "it can include NGOs, businesses and the man in the moon". -Dawn/The InterPress News Service.