At both the Warsaw and Seoul governmental meetings, civil society actors organized parallel forums to discuss democracy-related issues, and to make proposals to governments about how best to address the democratic deficits of their regions. In preparation for the May 2005 CD ministerial meeting in Santiago, a group of civil society actors created an Executive Secretariat to structure and coordinate the non-governmental effort, making it a real process, where ministerial meetings are seen as milestones in an ongoing effort.

The main objectives of this process were: to organize and develop a participatory process for the social and political actors of Santiago 2005, to promote the creation of a non-governmental counterpart of the Community of Democracies, and to provide governments, international, and regional organizations, civil society, and the donor community with a high-level analysis of both democratic deficits and also proposals for how to address them. The process should continue beyond Santiago, promoting the conditions for an ongoing involvement of different civil society actors. Finally, it works to advocate for and raise global awareness of the importance of developing effective and comprehensive democracy promotion instruments, especially taking into consideration the present world context.

The Secretariat aims to be a temporary coordinator for this process, working with civil society organizations worldwide in preperation for Santiago 2005, developing a follow-up process and passing the Secretariat to the next chair country.

Work Plan for Santiago 2005

Global Level
- Creation of a global non-governmental counterpart for governments.
- Preparatory meetings and region

al workshops with non-state actors during 2004
- Final global meeting of the Non-Governmnetal process in Santiago, Chile on March 2nd and 3rd, 2005

Regional Level
- NGO networks, Political Parties, Political Foundations and other key actors in Asia; Latin America; Middle East & North Africa; North America; Europe; Sub-Saharan Africa; Russia, Balkans and NIS.
- Networking and coordination among regional actors for the discussion of proposals for governments and lobby with the respective governments.

National Level
- Raising awareness among civil society organizations on the importance of advocacy with governments and the need of follow-up the implementation of governmental agreements.
- Creation of lasting national networks and coalitions among different non-state actors to monitor and promote democracy and government compliance with commitments made at the Community o

f Democracies. (back to top)

The Executive Secretariat has developed the following strategy for this process:

Initial planning and coordination meeting with non-state actors (held in January 2004 in Lisbon, Portugal). The meeting brought together non-state actors from civil society, political foundations, and political parties across all the regions of the world. Participants agreed to work in their regions to expand the non-governmental process, involving other organizations and individuals to help define the major democratic deficits and develop proposals for how governments should address those deficits. Working in both in regional groups and as a whole participants defined work plan for 2004.

Regional Workshops (June 2004– January 2005). Following the strategy agreed upon in Lisbon, partners organized regional workshops and activities to craft proposals for government action that would strengthen democracy. These workshops, and the proposals that they generate, were at the heart of the final recommendations presented to governments in the May ministerial meeting of the Community of Democracies. Details of the regional activitites can be found in Regional Activities.

Global Issues Group (June 2004- January 2005). In order to address issues directly related to the format and structure of the Community of Democracies ministerial meeting, the Executive Secretariat created a Global Issues group. More information about the topics that group focuses on and the proposals that it has generated can be found in the section on the Global Issues Group.

Final meeting of the preparatory process (March 2nd and 3rd, 2005, Santiago, Chile). This meeting convened participants in the Non-Governmental Process from all the regions of the world to work with the compiled proposals from all the regional workshops and agree on the final recomendations for the governments.

Working with governments in preparation for the ministerial meeting (January 2005 -May 2005). This lobbying effort was carried out by the Secretariat and by the regional partners with the goal of making governments aware of the recomendations that came out of the Non-Governmental Process encouraging them to include these recomendations in their Plan of Action.

Ministerial meeting of the Community of Democracies (April 28th, 29th and 30th, 2005). The recomendations from the Non-Governmental Process were presented to the governments for their consideration.

- Influence of civil society organizations in the definition of the Santiago Plan of Action that governments agreed on during the Ministerial meeting.

- The non-governmental process has had an enormous impact strengthening networks within the region and creating new ones. (back to top)

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