She was speaking in a plenary session on day three of the Round Table on Partnership with Civil Society in the Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action. A second panel of four speakers discussed ways to strengthen civil society groups and ensure their accountability and financial sustainability. They will culminate in an international forum next February in The Hague, the Netherlands, and a special session of the United Nations General Assembly in June and July 1999. The ICPD and took place in a time when the constraining aspects are in dominance worldwide.
Religion reaches more people than any other sector of civil society.
NGOs supporting ICPD goals should therefore make a political commitment to cultivate allies in the religious community, to talk to those within that community who oppose the ICPD agenda, and to work to bring the voices of religious people into discussions on implementing the Programme of Action. Those forces should be engaged in dialogue since the pendulum will swing towards them one day. Within every religion, there are people of faith who can move the ICPD agenda forward. It was wrong when it taught that the world was flat. It was wrong when it said slavery was moral.