Active Democracy Network shared preliminary results of the EGCI at the 38th General Assembly of the OAS.
Delegates of 12 countries were present at the Activities of the General Assembly of the OAS, particularly at the informal dialogue with Secretary General Insulza and the formal Dialogue with the Official Delegates of the 34 member countries of the institution.
Catalina Delpiano of Corporacion PARTICIPA intervened in the meeting with Mr. Insulza, which more than 100 people attended, highlighting the existence of this hemispheric Network present in 23 countries, with 10 years of experience in the following up of the commitments attained at the Summits of the America. She also talked of the expectation that the efforts of the OAS and the member countries will contribute to the work of follow-up that they are doing today through the EGCI, in order to determine how each nation is progressing on their compliance with the mandates that they committed to at their meetings in the inter-American system. She was appreciative of the support of ACDI, CIDI/OAS, OSI and the Summits Secretariat, because thanks to their contribution this initiative is made possible.
The Dialogue with the official Delegates included more than 400 people in attendance, in which there were 16 interventions by the Civil Society and 13 by the governments. Kris Rampersad, of the Network for NGO’s of Trinidad and Tobago for Advancement of Women and in representation of the Network made his intervention, pointing out that the work that is taking place in the 23 countries that make up the Network will bear fruit with the Evaluation of Government Compliance Index. The preliminary results in 9 countries point out that the progress in the fulfillment of the mandates for the strengthening of democracy is slow, modest and in some cases worrying. The best-evaluated area is Access to Information, and that area which represents the biggest setbacks is Decentralization and Strengthening of citizen participation. This last one is worrying in that it is the base for democratic practices.Read More
Catalina Delpiano, Corporación Participa - cdelpiano@participa.cl
Argentina progresses on the Active Democracy project.
CAs the national coordinator of the regional Active Democracy project, CIPPEC (Center for the Implementation of Public Policies for Equity and Growth) began with the development of the activities established by the Hemispheric Coordination in January of 2008.
The first activity consisted of defining the members of the expert panel for each of the thematic areas: Access to Public Information, Freedom of Expression, Participation of Civil Society and Decentralization and Local Governments. The description of the methodology and the objectives of the project inspired great interest in all of these areas. This panel includes people who are highly involved in the public issues of our country, and who contribute a perspective from within the civil society. Executive directors of the main non-governmental organizations that participate in the design and monitoring of public policies in each of the four thematic areas of the project participate as experts. Read More
Eugenia Braguinsky, CIPPEC - ebraguinsky@cippec.org
Civil Society Follow-up on the Governmental Compliance with the Summits of the Americas".
35 experts participated in the process of the construction of the EGCI in Bolivia.
The Participation and Justice Network, as the civil society organization acting as the national coordinator in Bolivia for the hemispheric project of follow-up on governmental compliance with commitments attained by the countries in the region at the Summits of the Americas, has concluded an active stage of work and consulting with 35 national experts, with whom they have evaluated the progress in terms of the freedom of expression, access to information, decentralization and strengthening of civil society. Read More
Ramiro Orias, Red Participación y Justicia - rorias@participacionyjusticia.org
AFTER APRIL 20TH: Notes on the post-electoral situation
The elected President, Fernando Lugo, whose electoral platform is the Patriotic Alliance for Change, a group that brings together 10 parties and political movements among which is the traditional Authentic Liberal Radical Party, initiates the transitional period of his presidency with a high degree of legitimacy after having achieved a victory by 10 percentage points (some 170 thousand votes) over the official candidate Blanca Ovelar, and having achieved, up to now, certain tactical consensuses that will allow him to assume the Presidency in the context of a relatively stable scenario.Read More
A contribution by Seeds for Democracy
Marta Ferrara - Executive Director - martaferrara@spd.org.py
More information:
NGOs still left out.
Trinidad and Tobago's civil society is still being left out of the decision-making process at the government level.
And even though the government had committed itself at the 2003 Summit of the Americas held in Quebec, to give due recognition to civil groups and to allow them to be part of State boards and committees which have an active role in making decisions that affect all citizens, the country was yet to see this become a reality.Read More
Rohandra John
The Network of NGO's of Trinidad Tobago for Advancement of Women - kriscivica@yahoo.com, network@wow.net
