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A meeting of the Global Civil Initiative for the OSCE was held on July 11-12, 2010 in Almaty. The Initiative is a coalition of leading human rights and civil organizations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, aiming at strengthening the role of the civil society within the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The meeting was dedicated to the situation in Kyrgyzstan, to working out possible topics for the agenda of the Summit in October 2010, compiling recommendations addressed to Kazakhstan, as well as to the question of future development of the Initiative. It will draw attention to the fact that, for the first time the OSCE is headed by a former Soviet Union republic – Kazakhstan, 2010 is the year of the Kazakhstan OSCE Chairmanship. The OSCE is a unique organization, combining the Council of Europe countries and the European Union Member States on one hand, and Central Asia, Belarus, the USA and Canada on the other. The OSCE is also unique in the promotion of comprehensive security concepts that include not only military and military-political dimensions of security, but economical and human dimensions as well – human rights questions, primacy of the law and democracy.
It is no coincidence, that the OSCE with all its special focus on human dimensions is standing out against a background of a number of international intergovernmental organizations by its great opportunities of participation in the field. At one time, the participation of the Helsinki Movement, headed by the Moscow Helsinki Group, in the OSCE standards promotion in the field of human dimension, had seriously changed the international relations’ nature, emphasizing that Human Rights is a subject of direct and legitimate interest of all the Organization member states and civil society.
The goal of the Initiative that was created during a number of civil organization summits in the region (including the participation of the International Youth Human Right Movement (YHRM)) in Almaty in March 2010 and then in Kiev in April 2010, was set up to continue the traditions of the Helsinki Movement, and includes the working on the common position of the civil organizations, promoting new international norms and standards as well as enforcing mutual support in these areas.
During the press conference in the Interfax-Kazakhstan building on July 12 the International Civil Initiative was presented to journalists and representatives of the civil society. (See http://www.interfax.ru/society/txt.asp?id=144909). Sardar Bagishbekov (Voice of freedom, Kyrgyzstan), Vladimir Shkolnikov (ex-director of the Democratization Division of the ODIHR, the OSCE, the YHRM honorary member), Dmitry Makarov (The YHRM Coordinating Council Member, the YHRM team coordinator on the work with the OSCE) were the speakers at the press-conference. Andrei Yurov, the YHRM Honorary President, the Moscow Helsinki Group strategic development director read out the Initiative’s main goals and plans, highlighting the history of its establishment.
The declaration of the Initiative, its analytic materials and recommendations are available on the MHG website: http://www.mhg.ru/heldv.

For information you can also write to the MHG team's OSCE address: w-osce@yhrm.org.