Friends of the Helsinki Process Senior Officials' Meeting in Helsinki
21 June, 2005
At the invitation of Finland and Tanzania, senior officials from 12 "Friends of the Helsinki Process" governments are meeting in Helsinki on 21-22 June, to discuss the results and proposals for action of the Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy. These governments are Algeria, Brasil, Canada, Egypt, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.
The Helsinki Process, a joint initiative of Finland and Tanzania, has sought to build bridges between different stakeholders from the North and South - governments, international organisations, civil society organisations and the business sector - in order to find a new and more effective method for global problem solving, and promoting democracy in international relations.
The Helsinki Process has sought to mobilize political will and resources to implement existing proposals for solving global problems, rather than inventing new ones. Thus the Process has drawn on the work of many previous commissions, including the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation, co-chaired by the Presidents of Finland and Tanzania.
The Helsinki Group, the high-level body of the Helsinki Process, and the three thematic Tracks supporting its work - New Approaches to Global Problem Solving, Global Economic Agenda, and Human Security - have called for the promotion of multi-stakeholder cooperation as an approach to global problem solving and identified several concrete proposals for issues which should be urgently tackled using this approach. The Tracks launched their reports in January 2005 at the World Social Forum and the World Economic Forum, and the Helsinki Group will launch its report in London on 29 June 2005.
The Foreign Ministers of the "Friends of the Helsinki Process" have been invited to meet in Helsinki during the Helsinki Conference of 7-9 September 2005, the culmination point of the Helsinki Process. The conference, titled "Mobilising Political Will", will focus on translating the multi-stakeholder dialogue of the Helsinki Process into multi-stakeholder action by gathering support for selected proposals.
Further information: Ambassador Ilari Rantakari, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, tel. +358 9 160 56192, +358 40 709 4245, and Omary Mjenga, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Tanzania, tel. +255 744 299962