World Movement for Democracy - Inaugural Assembly Report

Building the World Movement for Democracy

Inaugural World Assembly
February 14-17, 1999
New Delhi, India

Report Home

World Movement for Democracy

Founding Statement

Democracy as a Universal Value - Keynote Address by Amartya Sen

Plenary 1:
Democracy & Development
Plenary 2:
Democracy & Diversity
Plenary 3:
Challenges of Democratic Governance

Greetings

Workshops:
New Communications Technologies
Democracy & NGOs
Political Parties & Democracy
Policy Research Institutes & Democracy
Trade Unions & Democracy in a Changing Global Economy
Civic Education & Democracy
Democracy Assistance Foundations
Democracy & Market Institutions
Transparency & Accountability
Informal Workshop Reports

Conference Views
Participants
Media
Agenda
Biographies

Informal Workshop Reports

Africa Caucus

Fifteen participants from the African continent met and raised the following issues for the consideration of the full conference:

Stressed the need for a more comprehensive participatory approach to subsequent meetings of the movement. In particular, they recommended the holding of national and regional preparatory meetings.

Emphasized the need to reduce the dependency syndrome bred by democracy assistance initiatives by encouraging the formation of independent foundations which can be run by recipients with endowments from donor organizations.

Stressed the need for the next meeting to embrace the multi-lingual nature of the world's democratic community.

Asia Caucus

Thirty participants from the Asia-Pacific region convened an informal meeting to introduce themselves to each other and to discuss issues related to the region. Everyone in the group agreed to exchange e-mail addresses for future contact and cooperation. Comments included:

Coordinated action by activists in different countries would be beneficial in areas of common concern, such as: strengthening the rule of law, addressing impunity for human rights abuses, stopping the abuse of national security laws to suppress free speech and freedom of association, and electoral law reform.

Activists would find it useful to have a democracy index to measure achievements in democratization, just as the existing human rights indexes are used to assess human rights protection in particular countries.

Democrats could try to gain support for a requirement that in order to serve on the UN Security Council, governments must have ratified the principal international human rights treaties.

Activists should promote an Asian human rights charter.

Asian democrats should continue to speak out against the "Asian Values" argument that denies the universality of human rights and democracy, and should seek opportunities to discuss in more depth the actual experience of Asian approaches to advocating human rights.

The WMD can help Asian democratic activists by organizing programs for groups and individuals to visit fellow activists in neighboring countries; by offering courses such as training in negotiating skills; and by enabling activists to learn more about how democracy movements have succeeded in other countries--examples included the Polish democratic transition, the experience of South Asian democracies, carrying out human rights education in difficult situations, and handling majority-minority ethnic conflicts.

Middle East Caucus

More than 40 representatives of NGOs from the Arab countries, Israel and Turkey convened two meetings. Because of the language barrier, the group was limited to the 35 Arabic speakers at the conference representing groups in ten Arab countries who met and formed a working group. The first meeting consisted of participant introductions as well as a brief description of the National Endowment for Democracy and its mission. The second meeting brought together the same group of individuals in a more detailed discussion of the conference. Participants discussed some of the problems which they encountered during the conference, such as the lack of Arab panelists in workshops and plenary sessions, the purpose of the alliance, and reviewed the proposed bylaws to ensure that the group was in agreement with those. Subsequently, the group drafted a brief memo on issues on which they disagreed and raised those at the appropriate plenary session. The group also discussed the need for continuity and follow-up among the Arab participants in the aftermath of the conference and one of them volunteered to set up a database/website with contact information on participants, an idea welcomed by all.

Russia Caucus

Russian participants and one participant from Ukraine took part in a regional meeting on Russia. The meeting focused on the Russian Democratization Assistance Act of 1999 introduced by Senator Joseph Biden, which authorized, among other initiatives, $50,000 for FY 2000 to conduct a feasibility study of establishing a foundation for the promotion of democratic institutions in the Russian Federation to be known as the Galina Starovoitova Foundation for Russian Democracy, in honor of Galina Starovoitova, a former member of the State Duma and Russia's leading female politician who was assassinated in St. Petersburg in November 1998. The discussion allowed the participants to express their views on Ms. Starovoitova's legacy and also revealed differences in their assessments of the most important issues for Russian democracy in the future. It was recommended that the foundation should follow issues which had engaged Ms. Starovoitova, such as human rights, the problems of Armenia and the Caucasus, ethnic and minority issues, and the promotion of women as political leaders. They also discussed the location of the Foundation. Since Ms. Starovoitova's home town was St. Petersburg, some thought the foundation should be based there. Other participants felt that a major institution of this kind should be in Moscow.

Women's Caucus

More than 20 participants interested in discussing the role of women in politics met to introduce themselves and to plan for future communication. Participants agreed to circulate their e-mail addresses and to continue to communicate via the Internet. Participants also agreed to propose several amendments to the draft WMD "Founding Statement:"

To add "women's organizations" to the list of groups working for the realization of democracy.

To include as goals of the movement for democracy: equal status for women and their full participation in political, social and economic life.

The substance of these proposed amendments were incorporated by consensus into the statement on February 17.