The Access Initiative will hold its third Global Gathering in Kampala, Uganda for advocates from around the world working on access rights. The gathering will be a rallying call for civil society organizations to increase their advocacy and outreach work in the four emerging areas that have significant implications for global environmental sustainability and democracy in the 21st Century:

o Climate change governance o Environmental justice and poverty o Extractive industries with particular emphasis on oil governance o Renewing the call for environmental democracy: Rio +20

The overall goal of the Kampala 2010 TAI Global Gathering is to formulate and adopt a forward looking global strategy necessary to accelerate the implementation of access rights as a plain to achieve greater democracy and environmental sustainability at the national level. The gathering will provide sessions for re-envisioning and strategizing, as well as learning and skill building, including working with mass media and strategic communications. The Kampala 2010 Global Gathering of The Access Initiative will bring together about 100 members of the network from over 50 countries around the world. As the first gathering of TAI to be held in Africa, the meeting provides a rare opportunity to examine the above thematic issues in an African perspective and the role of African civil society organizations in global environmental governance. The concept note prepared by the host ACODE, Uganda and the TAI Secretariat (WRI) is attached.

A draft agenda will be circulated via the listserv for initial comments within the next month. All participants are asked to register in advance for this conference. Please see attached registration form for details. Registration deadline is Friday, August 13th.

There is very little funding available for partner travel. We therefore encourage partners to immediately begin applying for travel funds to donors on their own. Please use the concept note attached for this purpose. If you need further assistance by way of letters of support etc., the Secretariat would be happy to provide these on request. If these attempts fail, then please use the application form for travel funding to indicate the needed funding, though we cannot assure that there will be adequate funds to support the travel of all applicants. The registration and funding application forms are also attached.

Other associated meetings include: Core Team meeting (Oct 25) and the TAI Advocacy meeting (Oct 26). There will be space in the Global Gathering agenda for regional dialogues.

Attached: 1) Registration Form 2) Concept Note 3) Funding Request Form 4) Advertisement for the Gathering