PART III – CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION Although civil society actors do not have the possibility to formally participate in the interactive dialogue between States and the Committee, they are highly encouraged to send their representatives to Geneva to utilise existing opportunities as much as possible. In order to obtain access to Palais Wilson, where the CERD session is held, civil society actors are required to contact the CERD secretariat and apply for an accreditation in advance. a) Informal meeting with CERD at the beginning of the week Since its 78th session (February/March 2011)80 CERD holds an informal meeting with NGOs at the beginning of each week; a total of 3 hours are allocated for one meeting and NGOs can provide information on all counties that are considered by CERD in that respective week. NGOs who wish to participate should contact the CERD secretariat before the session concerned. At the 78th session NGOs from Bolivia and Uruguay participated in the meeting at the beginning of the first week and those from Norway, Ireland, Spain and Serbia at the beginning of the second week.81 These meetings are convened in the conference room where CERD has its formal sessions and interpretation is provided by the conference service in English, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese.82 Here NGOs have the opportunity to directly provide country-specific information to CERD members and receive their questions, even if NGOs and CERD members use different working languages. Depending on the number of NGOs wishing to speak, exact time given to one speaker will vary. b) Organising an informal briefing for CERD members Civil society actors can organise an informal briefing for CERD members. Usually 1 hour during the lunch break is allocated for all those who wish to provide information on one country immediately before the consideration of the relevant State report. In order to do so, civil society actors must first contact the CERD secretariat and request this possibility. All Committee members are informed by the secretariat when there is a briefing, however it is an informal meeting and, thus, up to Committee members to decide whether to actually attend or not. Civil society actors can also choose to personally invite the Committee members to the briefing in hopes of increasing the chances of their attendance. The length of a briefing is usually 1 hour, whereas longer briefings might be organised for 1.5 hours if lunch for CERD members is provided. Such briefings are usually held in the room next to the main conference room where CERD convenes its formal sessions. There is a screen and sockets for e.g. using lap tops to show power point presentation, pictures or short movies. Wireless internet is normally available in the room and there have been briefings where civil society actors who could not come to Geneva have participated through skype. It is important that there is no facility for simultaneous interpretation, so briefings should ideally be convened in one of the working languages of the Committee members, mostly English, French or Spanish. Organising and providing interpretation of oral presentations can be complicated for the briefing, but civil society actors can, for example, prepare short information sheets, in which key issues are summarised, in English, French and/or Spanish for those Committee members whose native language is one of these. Committee members have stated that they have found these informal briefings to be very useful. These informal briefings provide civil society actors with the opportunity to interact directly with Committee members and present updated information, explain complicated issues, and/or to answer any questions which CERD members may raise. When more than one organisation wishes to have such a briefing, it is highly recommended that all participants cooperate with each other in order to maximise the benefit of it for all; civil society actors and CERD members alike. 80 th Decision to have this meeting was made by CERD at its 77 session in August 2010. Ref. CERD annual report 2010, A/65/18, para. 87 81 th Refer to the programme of work of CERD for its 78 session, can be found at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/cerds78.htm 82 Current working languages of CERD members 30 ICERD & CERD: A GUIDE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY ACTORS