© UN Photo/Manuel Elías
In a stark setback for civil society at the UN, members of the Committee on NGOs moved to strip two organizations of their consultative status, with several more NGOs likely to face similar action in upcoming sessions.
The latest session of the UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations raises serious concerns over State retaliation against civil society groups. Asubsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Committee has an important gatekeeping role in determining NGO participation at the UN.
Through the granting of ECOSOC consultative status – also known as ECOSOC accreditation- to interested NGOs, the Committee determines which NGOs can access UN premises, make statements at various UN meetings, provide policy recommendations and organise events.
The Committee meets biannually, typically in January and May, and is composed of 19 States from all UN regional groups. The current members of the Committee are Algeria, Armenia, Bahrain, Cameroon, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Eritrea, Georgia, India, Israel, Liberia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Türkiye, United Kingdom, United States and Zimbabwe.
On the first day of its 2026 regular session, Algeria urged the Committee to withdraw the consultative status of Italy based-organisation Il Cenacolo, and suspend the consultative status of Comité International pour le Respect et l’Application de la Charte Africaine des Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples (CIRAC), a group based in Geneva, for one year.
Algeria alleged that Il Cenacolo did not appear on the registry of Italian NGOs and that it was making politically motivated statements at the Human Rights Council. Their delegate further claimed that CIRAC was selling UN grounds passes, intervening in matters beyond their declared expertise, and displaying a ‘pattern of behaviour’ which led to calls to order at the Council. Algeria sought clarifications to these allegations and requested the submission of documents such as registration certificate, board resolutions, and financial statements from the NGOs.
On 30 January, only four days after the questions were raised, Algeria reiterated its call for Il Cenacolo’s consultative status to be revoked permanently, and for CIRAC’s status to be suspended for one year. While it appears that both NGOs had provided some information in response to the Committee’s questions, Algeria deemed the responses insufficient. As CIRAC is headquartered in Switzerland, the Swiss delegation requested the floor to comment on the rushed process and point out that the NGO had only had four days to respond to complex queries. It called for the decision to be postponed so that translations of CIRAC’s response, received that very morning in French, could be shared with Member States to provide time for consideration.
Israel, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom also made statements urging that the decision be delayed to allow adequate time for facts to be confirmed and considered. Israel called for a no-action motion to adjourn the decision regarding which was unsuccessful. After the motion failed, Members proceeded to vote on Algeria’s motion to withdraw and suspend consultative status for the two NGOs.
Eleven members voted in favour (Algeria, Bahrain, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Eritrea, India, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Türkiye, Zimbabwe), four members voted against (Chile, Costa Rica, Israel, United Kingdom) and one member abstained (Georgia). Armenia, Liberia and the United States were not present for the votes. The Committee ultimately voted to recommend to ECOSOC that: (i) Il Cenacolo’s consultative status be revoked and (ii) CIRAC’s status be suspended for one year.
'The process through which the Committee arrived at its decision raises serious concerns regarding due process, fairness and shrinking civil society space at the UN. Given the grave impact of losing ECOSOC consultative status on the ability of NGOs to participate in the work at the UN, this development is extremely concerning.'Maithili Pai, UN Advocate for ISHR
The Committee is expected to adopt its report for this session during its final meeting on 20 February.
ECOSOC, the parent body of the Committee on NGOs, will then consider whether to accept or reject the Committee’s recommendations regarding Il Cenacolo and CIRAC’s consultative status in June 2026. If accepted, Il Cenacolo would need to wait at least three years before it may be eligible to re-apply for consultative status.
We urge Member States of ECOSOC as the parent body to vote to reject the Committee’s recommendations for failure to follow a fair process in a decision with profound adverse consequences.
After the Committee had recommended granting consultative status to Transnational Anti-Organized Crime Intelligence Group Inc., an organisation based in the Philippines that had been consistently deferred since January 2018, the Philippines took the floor as a non-Member alleging that the organisation’s certificate of incorporation had been revoked and raising concerns about the organisation’s leadership.
The NGO was asked a question by the Committee to clarify the allegations made by the Philippines, effectively deferring the application for the ninth year in a row.
Later in the session, Algeria raised allegations of impersonation and ‘NGO hopping’ – the same individuals allegedly representing different organisations during Human Rights Council sessions regarding four more NGOs in consultative status:
These groups are based in Mauritania, Switzerland, Mali and Senegal respectively.The Committee submitted questions to and requested documents from these NGOs.
The NGO Committee did not meet on 29 January due to the UN liquidity crisis.
The Chief of the NGO Branch also referred to the impact of the current UN financial situation including a shrinking office, which may reduce the number of applications submitted for the NGO Committee’s consideration as well as adversely impact activities such as processing of UN grounds passes, conference services and day-to-day support to the Committee.
The Chief warned of a real risk that the NGO Branch may eventually be unable to support the Committee in accordance with ECOSOC Resolution 1996/31.
The in-person Q&A interaction with NGOs that usually takes place during the last hour of the Committee’s sessions did not go ahead on 5 February due to early adjournment of the Committee’s meeting.
India stated that it would be helpful for NGOs to be informed in advance if the Q&A is suspended, to assist them with scheduling. The Chair responded that this suggestion may be considered in the Committee’s informal working group.
'The Q&A interaction is the only opportunity for NGOs seeking accreditation to directly engage with the Committee. Unfortunately, its archaic working methods require NGOs, irrespective of their location, to travel to New York for this. Given the limited resources of several NGOs as well as the environmental footprint from air travel for several NGOs seeking to deepen their engagement with and impact on the UN’s work, the loss of the Q&A space is particularly disappointing. Efforts to enhance the Committee’s efficiency must not come at the cost of its very core mandate, which is to ensure meaningful civil society participation at the UN.'Maithili Pai
This session, the Committee considered 618 applications in total – 237 new applications and 381 applications deferred from previous sessions.
Of these, 214 NGOs (34.6%) were granted special consultative status, consisting of 148 (62.4%) new NGO applicants and 66 (17.3%) deferred applications.
©ISHR (all figures based on ISHR’s in-person monitoring of sessions)
China, Pakistan and India together accounted for nearly 50% of questions posed to applicants by Committee members in this session, leading to deferrals in their requests for UN accreditation.
In a notable departure from past practice, the United States did not pose any questions to NGOs or actively participate in this session.
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