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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 1
(2 of 16 pages)
Speaker: I'd like to welcome you to our third session. My name is Chris
Holman, I'm with NDI. Today, this afternoon we'll talk about Participation. And before I introduce our moderator,
I'd like to ask one small housekeeping request, to help with the interpretation. If after our three speakers have
spoken, and you have questions or comments, if before you speak, you could identify what language you're going
to speak in and then wait maybe five seconds, because some of the interpreters must switch booths. And with that,
I'd like to introduce our moderator today. Frank Loy. Frank Loy is the undersecretary for Global Affairs at the
United States Department of State. Where he has served in three different capacities. He has also served in the
private business world, and the NGO sector. Specifically within the NGO community, he worked on environmental issues
and Eastern European transitions to democracy. And with that I'd like to turn over the chair to Frank.
Frank Loy: Thank you, Chris. Good afternoon. This is a good sized group to talk about an important issue,
and maybe the best thing to do would be to introduce ourselves first so that as we speak, we kind of know, not
only who we are, but the organization or the affiliation that we're with. So if we could do that kind of quickly,
then maybe the rest of our conversation will go well. Why don't we start right over here.
Thank you, everyone. The subject today is the participation of non-government actors really in the functioning
of the democracy. I'm going to assume that generally, the people that have chosen to come to this conference are
reasonably convinced in principle that participation by non-governmental actors is desirable. If somebody wants
to differ with that, please do so. But I'm going to assume for the moment that we agree on that, both for reasons
of principle and for reasons of practicality.
If my assumption is right, what I think we should focus on this afternoon, and what I hope our speakers will focus
on this afternoon, are some of the obstacles to the participation of citizens and some of the institutional channels
that can be used and that must be used in order to make sure that the participation actually works. We have to
ask whether our laws are adequate to permit the effective operation of non-government organizations. We have to
ask whether there are mechanisms in place that will permit the long-term financial existence of non-governmental
organizations. We have to ask what is the proper relationship between government and non-government organizations.
Do they have to be totally separate or can you have a non-government organization that receives government subsidies
and still maintains its independence. And we have to ask the questions that non-governmental organizations ask
a lot, and that is, what is the most effective role that this organization can play? How do we mix the provision
of services and the advocacy of causes? Because many do one or the other or both. So I don't want to intrude upon
your time, but I'm asking that if we agree that there's a value to non-governmental organizations, we spend our
time on, not on agreeing on that, or celebrating that, but rather on talking about the practical problems of making
them work in our respective societies.
We have a number of speakers to start off our session today. And the first is Ms. Durga Ghimire from Nepal who
is the President of an organization called ABC Nepal which is very much involved with the issue of women's rights
and the discrimination against women, and is very knowledgeable on this subject. Ms. Ghimire.
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