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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 3
(15 of 16 pages)
On the issue of institutional channels, we noted the example of Mongolia, where
the NGO law has provided a channel for citizens to communicate with government and the government to communicate
with citizens through petitions that focus particularly on human rights and other violations. We also noted that
it is important that the laws of the country set the institutional mechanism for the channels between civil society
and government. There was also some call for the definition of the functional roles of the different partners in
democracy.
With regard to institutional reform for public accountability, a question was raised about a quota and I would
have liked to have had a lively discussion on this because this is an issue that is extremely important now in
literature on gender and governance and it would have been nice to see the pros and cons of the quota system. In
institutional reform, the issue was also raised that NGOs have to be recognized by law. The role of ombudsman was
raised as a mediator that can also convey to the government the trends of popular support or lack of support. A
suggestion was made as to funding from government to NGOs such as tax exemption, etc. I think this is something
that could be debated at a longer term, but we didn't have enough time. There was also a need to establish institutional
structure to enable participation of the population.
The third point was in relation to the balance between civil liberties and public order and here there was some
discussion. The Mongolian position was that public order should be subordinate to civil liberty at the time being
when you are experiencing an emerging democracy. There was a call that this balance should respect the specificity
of the countries themselves.
The issue of civic education was also raised with special emphasis to pluralism and that we also talked about,
in some instances, that civic education should not be seen as short-term, but should be seen in terms of a long-term
perspective, particularly when you're dealing with women. The case of Mongolia was a good example of how you could
have civic education through distance learning and through the formal educational system whether it's secondary
or school or adult education.
On the issue of women, I have not heard one negative comment about the participation of women and everyone seems
to agree that it is extremely important. One voice was made asking why should women be considered as a minority
when they constitute half of the population. I think it's a very valid question that should be borne in mind. One
of the participants suggested that when we deal with women's participation in politics, we should look at it from
an integrated approach and in terms of the socio-economic and cultural aspects and here in particular to deal with
the attitudes that inhibit women's participation and confront them.
There was also mention that in some cases, NGOs and community development organiztions provide the testing ground
for women so that they can develop their leadership skills from which they can go into politics. The role models
were stressed and the absence of role models was also stressed and here there was a call for creating opportunities
for the establishment of role models by establishing decrees where you can appoint women to posts either in government
or in parliament and that also links to the issue of the quota system. The countries that have a problem with indigenous
people raised the issue of the double burden of women who belong to both minorities, or minority status, of being
both indigenous and being female.
With regard to civic education, the issue was raised that women's needs, especially in time allocation, should
be taken into consideration in any effort to reach women in civic education. And lastly, the electoral system itself
was questioned as providing adequate support for improving the participation of women in politics.
Chair: There was a call for more effective representation. There was also a call for the NGOs to be fully
representative of the population and should provide a moral of pluralistic representation and NGOs in particular
should participate to have an impact on decision-making. Coalition of interest groups was raised as an important
case where action had been taken to influence decision-making, as in the case of Macedonia and particularly in
relation to the new law on maternity leave.
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