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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 5
(3 of 22 pages)
For example, in Malawi we had in the transitional process, what we call the National
Consolidative Group, which brought together political parties, private sector, government institutions, the army
and the police, because Malawi is a conflictive society and because the opportunity arose. Each sector was able
to participate and express themselves and influence the decision making process and this enhanced unity and reduced
a lot of friction in decision making.
Besides that opportunity it also brought us down to the ground, in the sense as more competition for ideas and
ideologies stand on the platform. It encouraged each sector to go and cause that, because the mandate must be brought
in all the time. And as it becomes a cultural process, it enhances the attitude and capacity of those who are in
power to respond to public opinion and therefore influence decisions.
Citizens will withdraw from participation when they see that their opinions consistently have been ignored by those
who are in power. So the spirit of compromise and tolerance is very important for democratic participation.
The other aspect that I want to quickly to discuss is the institutionalization of partnership between government,
donors and the private sector of civil society.
I think in terms of drawing good governance and democratization process, it is important that these are not the
one goal, one can come and go processes, but there must be an institutional mechanism which will enhance people
both at the local level and the national level to be able to influence decisions.
In the case of Malawi, we have an Inter-Ministerial Committee for Human Rights and Good Governance. This brings
on board different Ministries together with [inaudible] and the civil society, who sit together monthly and make
decisions in terms of priorities of our social location and also participation where the [inaudible] need to influence
more and where our government need to [inaudible].
The advantages of this is minimizing resource, duplication of work and creating competition, negative competition,
which will necessarily effect a greater negative effect on the impact on the process.
A very creative process which has emerged in Malawi is that there is what is called a democracy front, which is
managed by the NDP and most of the donors who are not represented in Malawi and even though who are represented
in Malawi, put their grants into that common fund and this fund is managed by government -- representatives from
government, civil society and donors, upon proposals which come together and are discussed and arise and priorities
decided, so that influencing of resource organization and distribution and also decision making as to enhancing
governance is a priority of all the society.
Then the other thing that I want to look at is the reliance by those in power when they participate in decision
making, as to whether it becomes a behavior of government or it suggests being forced by the citizen.
I think this was in the early stages of government, it is the role of donors. But I say in Malawi, the government
was very reluctant to engage citizens to participate in decisions, to influence decision making and also the [inaudible]
party, to make any decision on any budgetary development process, monitoring the budgetary systems, the civil society
and [inaudible] government say, this is your mandate, you are not represented, you are not elected, you don't have
an elected office, so you cannot influence or participate. But the donors made it a mandate that any funding that
goes to government or government, the Ministry has an equal share to civil society and that it is a condition within
the agreement that the participation is enforced, in order to influence the behavior of government is [inaudible]
towards those who are opposing and are critical of its decisions.
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