I am sure if I hadn’t taken Maggie’s shared notification to apply for this conference, I wouldn’t be writing about this today!

This midweek’s blog post is about the 2024 United Nations Civil Society Conference, that was held in Nairobi last week, for 2 days.

 

 

For the 3 full days I spent in Kenya’s territory,

I loved it all.

I had last visited Kenya like that and not just passing through, about 22 years ago, visiting Auntie Jennifer in Nairobi.

 

 

Big city, beautiful city and one giant place with lots of people and good potential, in every corner.

Don’t forget about the nyama choma, too! (hihi)

 

 

So, this conference was the first in Africa in 70 years and of course, what place could be better to bring together over 4,000 people?

To that note, I have many questions as to why it took them this long, to bring this conference to the African continent!

It was my first time participating in this conference; it was even my first time knowing of this conference.

 

 

We interacted with so many people from around the world – doing a lot of very important work namely education, land rights, food, disability, technology, health, arts among others.

If you really want to know how important the work we do is, take your mind back to when #COVID19 had just started sweeping the world; we became the buffer between the public and their governments!

 

 

 

Of course, very many other questions came into mind, like…

  1. Can we become more inclusive in our work and lives?
  2. Do we practice equity in our work and lives?
  3. Do we practice equality in our work and lives?
  4. As we do our work, are we only speaking to ourselves or the people we are meant to interact with?
  5. Should there be a limit on who wants to join civil society?
  6. What is it with the 2 terms, β€œglobal south” and β€œglobal north”? etc….

 

 

Other than all that,

The United Nations needs to do better planning for this conference, on the next ones.

In their evaluations, I am certain that they scored on some parts but many of the participants will agree with me that there is a lot to improve!