Executive Coordinator, Ms. Kulshoom Ali attended a two-day UN-civil society regional consultation meeting, co-convened by UNDP in partnership with the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)  in Bangkok held on 30-31 August 2010, . It brought together civil society representatives from  the Asia Pacific and United Nations colleagues.

The consultation was intended to start the process to catalyze further policy dialogue between the UN and civil society at the regional and national levels on issues of particular concern. A need was felt for articulating a new perspective on multilateralism with the twin tasks of furthering ‘citizen-centric’ multilateralism and providing new meanings to human development.

After an opening session of analysis and overview of the political and development contexts in Asia-Pacific, each theme was taken up in detail, concluding with three parallel working group discussions about strategies for UN-civil society co-convening and a presentation of recommendations.

As the first such interaction between the UNDP APRC and diverse society from across the region, this was a unique dialogue which generated much interest and expectations on both sides.