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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 3
(9 of 16 pages)
What about civic education and which form would be good in our society? For active
pariticpation by citizens in politics and policy-making processes, at first it was 100% of our primary and secondary
education for all citizens. Of course civic education should be for adults. In my country, we exercise more successfully
so-called 'distance civic education' because the country is big and the population is small. Education should not
be one-sided. Some people will come for some education, but every citizen is a participant in this education. They
will gain knowledge themselves, so that they will then be active and exercise their political rights and access
to the political decision-making process.
What about participation of women in the political process? I will also say that the education of women and females
is important. In my country the education and literacy level is high, so in our case in my country this is not
so much a problem and also we are trying to have a quota in election legislation. In the first step there was a
quota inside political parties. For example, my party made a quota in the last election and also now in parliament,
more than 10% of MPs are now ladies. So this is one way, but it is not the only way.
Our colleague from Macedonia told us that for the quota, the proportional system of election is more convenient,
but also we can have other possibilities for the electoral system.
Women's activities are important, not only for themselves. This is important for government activities, government
services, as in education, health care and social security services. They work in these areas pf government services
areas more successfully than males, so through these activities they will go through the policy and policy-making
processes. NGOs dealing in education, in health care and care of elders is mostly ladies and they are very active
through these organizations and have a guarantee to be elected to parliament with the support of society.
Thank you.
Chair: As I said earlier, we will try to get as much as possible the countries represented here to participate,
so I will now exercise my right to ask El Salvador to talk before other speakers, followed by Mozambique, then
I will go to the others.
Luis Felipe Alam: Thank you. Madame Chairperson. I come from El Salvador and I am also in charge of the
NGOs, the oldest in the country and that goes back to 1964. We who are participating in this forum are considered
to be emerging democracies, but in actual fact we wish to be created as emerging democracies. We wish to see that
we are starting a new era in our countries in all sectors and we wish that we had an objective, a national objective,
which would help us to unify the efforts of all sectors, assuming the responsibilities, the expenses, the sacrifices
and to make full use of the benefits. This is the national objective and it's up to us to define this national
objective. How are we to seek the appropriate mechanisms and to eradicate the reasons for the isolation in the
economic, cultural and political spheres. All this is related to our determination and will to seek that and ti
find if it will be possible practically. We have to seek for mechanisms to have the civil society participate for
two objectives first, so that the citizens could influence or have an impact on decision-making by governments
and then they can later on participate in making political decisions. These two efforts are the very basis of the
democracy of participation.
What is the role that we play, we the NGOs, according to our possibilities? I think that the NGOs must seek new
creative methods for participation. We should serve and play the role of moderators for citizens for any grouping
so that we should build bridges which are necessary between the civic society and the authority. In 1964, five
NGO associations agreed to set up a common strategy and Norway, Denmark and Holland funded the project. Since 1998
we have expanded our project, which is called "Citizenship - the Year 2000" and one of the component
elements of this project is citizenship. We have collected about 90% of our population and we have found a motivator
for this activity and by calling on all the sectors to participate and meet and find out what they mean, what they
want, what they're seeking. We have tried to extract representatives from all civic societies to have this round
table and this was indeed a great achievement. Six months later, that is in December, and those who have sponsored
this project, which is again called "The [Inaudible] for Citizenship" so that the citizens themselves
will examine the authorities, but these organizations should also look into themselves and find out how it has
assisted and helped the authorities. This is the role of the NGOs to act as a moderator creating units and cells
in society. We must build strategies for the participation of citizens in which they could look freely so that
society can first of all have an influence on decision-making by the authorities and later on to participate in
making these decisions. This table, which is composed of 54 municipalities, will put this project before the electors
in the elections of next month.
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