Latin America & the Caribbean: Networks in Action: How to Build True Solidarity

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The Sixth Assembly
Regional Networking

Latin America & the Caribbean: Networks in Action: How to Build True Solidarity

Organizer:      
 
Moderator:     
Gina Romero – OCASA (Colombia)
 
Rapportuer:    
Oscar Alvarez – Fundación para el Pacifico Democrático (Costa Rica)
 
Presenters:      
Enrique de Obarrio – LAC Network (Panama)
Andrea Sanhueza – Participa (Chile)
Rommel Gonzalez – Representative of several indigenous movements (México)
Daniel Cordova – Invertir (Peru)
Recommendations for Regional Solidarity
 
  • Identify civil society networks and networks in other sectors with agendas for promoting and strengthening full democracy.
  • Create a working group to establish a mechanism for coordination between civil society networks, on the one hand, and the private sector, unions, academia, political groups, etc., on the other. Work toward full democracy and for social cohesion on the basis of common objectives and agendas.
  • Establish a working group to elaborate an Inter-American Declaration on Full Democracy taking into account the Warsaw Declaration of the Community of Democracies.
  • Based on the proposed Inter-American Declaration on Full Democracy, elaborate an index or ranking of full democracy in countries within the region.
  • Form a working group to conduct a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of civil society in the region.
  • Elaborate and attract signers to a joint declaration of networks aimed at OAS member governments to put into action the strategy that already exists in the OAS systemon the participation of civil society organizations.
  • Establish an international fund for natural disasters and crisis situations that can help build solidarity for democracy.
  • Establish a capacity-building school for democracy activists and training for reconstruction leaders in Haiti, and organize a workshop on public support for nonviolence.
  • Create a regional network of research centers on democracy.
  • Establish a regional virtual library on democracy and human rights.
  • Create a hemispheric atlas on the state of democracy in the region.
  • Form working groups on citizens’ rights, due process, and access to justice and information.
Recommendations for the LAC Network
 
  • The LAC Network should be registered as a civil society network in the OAS.
  • Create commissions of the LAC Network to broaden civil society advocacy in the following areas:
    • The Inter-American Democratic Charter
    • The Inter-American Convention on Corruption
    • The UN Convention on Corruption
    • The International Penal Court
    • The LAC Network should carry out its own projects with international funding.
Create a working group on Haiti, and strengthen the presence of the LAC Network in the country to unite and coordinate civil society organizations.