On 8 April, members of the UN’s Economic and Social Council, ECOSOC, elected the 19 countries that will serve on the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations for a four year term beginning in 2027. The committee reviews applications for consultative status with ECOSOC, a designation that allows civil society groups to enter UN premises, attend meetings and engage with UN bodies. Consultative status is formally granted by ECOSOC, but only on the committee’s recommendation, giving the body major influence over which non-governmental groups gain access to the organization.
Only 5 of the 19 members are rated “free” according to Freedom House
The International Service for Human Rights noted that the election result leaves the committee in the hands of a majority of states with “grave records of repressing or obstructing civil society at home and at the UN.” ISHR said that 13 of the 19 elected members are rated by the CIVICUS Monitor as having either “closed” or “repressed” civic space. It also noted that 14 of the 20 candidates in the election were named in recent UN Secretary General reports on intimidation and reprisals against people and groups engaging with the UN on human rights issues. “It is therefore alarming that the NGO Committee and its immense power over which voices get heard at the UN is being left to States that are likely to block crucial, independent actors to access the United Nations”, commented ISHR’s Senior Programme Officer Maithili Pai.
According to Freedom House’s most recent Freedom in the World 2026 country assessments, only five of the newly elected members are categorized as “free”: Estonia, Israel, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, whereas a sharp decline was noted in the latter. The others are classified as either “partly free” or “not free”: Côte d’Ivoire, India, Mexico, Peru, Tunisia and Ukraine are categorized as “partly free”, while Cameroon, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates are categorized as “not free”. The new Tyranny Tracker of the Human Rights Foundation rates Mexico and Ukraine as a “democracies under pressure”.
ISHR described the election process as “nearly entirely uncompetitive.” Out of 19 available seats, 20 candidates ran. Four regional groups presented closed slates, meaning that the number of candidates matched the number of available seats. Belarus was the only candidate to lose, in the sole competitive contest, for the Eastern European seats.
Geneva Solutions’ co-editor Michelle Langrand in a recent commentary described the committee as “an obscure body” used “to keep critics out.” Committee members “have a history of perpetually blocking NGOs and civil society groups they believe would be critical of them or their allies from gaining any access to the UN,” the article quotes Maithili Pai.
“An arrangement in which a majority of governments with repressive records decides which civil society voices may access the United Nations is fundamentally at odds with the organization’s claim to act in the name of ‘We the Peoples’,” said Andreas Bummel, Executive Director of Democracy Without Borders.
