Ingrid and Kumi speak to an attentive group.

Civil Society gathers from around the world to meet,discuss, plan a vision and message.Obviously all of the major players from civil society throughout the whole world were not there," Williams said , "but we specifically took advantage of the fact that there was a CIVICUS World Assembly that's already on the radar, where you have a wide selection of global actors."

Many/some activists agree on the validity of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, but insist that the gap between the declaration and the resulting goals and indicators is too wide.

Naidoo said that, in working with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), civil society has been "trying to make the best out of a bad framework that was put on the table".

"We are not talking about eradicating hunger, we are talking about reducing it by 50 percent by 2015. Not to even be able to achieve that is pathetic on the part of political leadership," he said, referring to the first of eight goals set by the United Nations.

---But GMO's as GLOBAL Food is not the solution; neither is the privatization of Global Health Care.--
There is also a price to pay for speaking out against the values held by the present Canadian Government.- i.e.the main speaker for 'Better Aid' was denied a visa by the Canadian Government to speak at the gathering. But, his substitute was very good at the explaining the realities of the situation.
The visiting UN Rep. then challenged the obvious knowledgeable Kumi "To build his own framework..." ;which to my disappointment he ignored. He wasn't listening.  Ingrid had better things to do and had left the room.