Active Democracy:
Citizen Network for the Implementation of Summit Mandates

Project Background

FOCAL continues to be a leader of the Hemispheric Coordination Team that designed and executed the project “Civil Society Follow-up to the Implementation of the Quebec City Plan of Action,” a three-year project undertaken over the period 2002-2005.  FOCAL’s main partners on the project are leading regional civil society actors PARTICIPA of Chile and the Regional Coordinator for Economic and Social Research (CRIES), and UNIANDES in Colombia.

The objective of “Civil Society Follow-up to the Quebec Plan of Action” was to support and promote democratic governance throughout the Americas by leveraging and enhancing the participation and skills of civil society. The project specifically sought to improve the level of implementation of the mandates emanating from the Summit Plan of Action and other regional agreements related to strengthening democracy in five areas:

1. Access to Public Information
2. Freedom of Expression
3. Access to Justice and the Independence of the Judiciary
4. Local Governments and Decentralization
5. Strengthening of Civil Society Participation

Between May 2002 and October 2005, a network of civil society organizations (CSOs) from 21 countries throughout the region received training in how to apply the follow-up instruments comprised of questionnaires and indicators used to collect information on each of the five themes. In each of the 21 countries, a baseline of progress was generated for each of the themes being monitored. The results were elaborated in national reports and were the basis of a series of proposals to address the deficiencies in implementation uncovered by the monitoring exercise. 

The results and proposals of the evaluation were shared widely with decision-makers and other CSOs at the national and regional level. The project set a precedent in translating Summit and other regional political mandates into government mandates and focusing the debate and action around the implementation of those mandates.

Other specific highlights of the project’s achievements include:

1. Influencing government advocacy positions. A good example of this can be found in the Declaration of Nuevo Leon, where 45% of the government commitments correspond with the proposals presented by the CSOs.   
2. Positively impacting the institutionalization of CSO participation in democratic governance and the OAS and the summit process. The advocacy of the project team contributed to the inclusion of  the dialogue between CSOs and Foreign Ministers on the official GA agenda since the OAS General Assembly in Chile in June 2003.  
3. Dynamic capacity-building among CSO’s to refine and focus their contribution to democracy in practice. All of the participating CSO’s accumulated experience and also learned from each other to improve and apply technical skills in collaborative project design and execution, advocacy and stakeholder management skills.
4. The summits process, and its relevant challenges and opportunities as a tool  to promote democracy, is more widely known in the Americas thanks to the project’s dissemination tools, including: i) the project website www.sociedadcivil.org, with an average of 4500 visits monthly and as many as 5600 visits around OAS General Assemblies or Summits falling in the time period of the project execution; ii) the 29 electronic monthly bulletins issued that offered information and opinion pieces about the summits process; and iii) the 67 news pieces related to the theme of follow-up that have been sent to a database of 3000 individuals.