The enormous challenges involved in re-establishing functioning states, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor and other cases, has absorbed much of the energy and resources of the international community. It has also alerted the public opinion as never before to the complexities of building democracy – problems of security, legitimacy, local ownership and the interplay of cultural, religious and democratic values. Increasingly, there is a realization that a much longer term perspective is needed on institution building and introducing democratic decision-making processes.
“Democracy assistance” in the broader context of development cooperation has become commonplace. However, it is mainly focused on the performance of public institutions (“governance”) and on anti-corruption strategies, rather than on the mechanics of the political system itself and the processes necessary to reform it. Local ownership is frequently emphasised as a principle, but tends to stop at dialogue with the beneficiary government and perhaps a few nongovernmental organizations in the capital city.
Democracy assistance that engages with political processes is a sensitive undertaking. In countries where the door has been opened for liberalization and democratic reform, the classic difficulties of development cooperation are further enunciated. Bringing external agencies together in a common endeavour with adequate resources is one challenge, developing a comprehensive strategy that can encompass many different kinds of assistance is another. Most crucial and often the most difficult, however, is engaging a process of local participation and ownership.
While initially appearing to be an inconveniently slow process, the notion of “dialogue” between leading “stakeholders” is now beginning to be accepted as the way to establish consensus as well as local ownership of viable processes of sustainable political reform and institution building. There are several examples of apparently successful dialogues, prompted in many instances (but not all) by external facilitation, to resolve political conundrums and define appropriate action. There is nevertheless still a lack of clear analysis and methodology about dialogue mechanisms and their use by independent mediators or facilitators.
IDEA’s programme on Dialogue for Democratic Development aims at systematizing the use of dialogues and inclusive processes for generating democratic reform.
The overall objective of the programme is to contribute to the professionalization and effectiveness of democracy promotion and conflict prevention endeavours. The programme advocates a sound and systematically evidenced compilation of good practice and its translation into a generic handbook or field manual.
The programme is developed in cooperation with the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and in consultation with other organizations that are implementing dialogue type interventions, such as the Carter Center, the War-torn Societies Project International, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy and others. The primary target group of the handbook is the organizations taking part in this community of practice, including the UNDP (its bureau for crisis prevention and recovery, the regional bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean and resident representative offices around the world). Through the programme’s activities and outputs, IDEA seeks to strengthen these practitioners’ capacity.
Outputs
With the OAS and the UNDP, IDEA is currently writing a handbook on democratic dialogue for field practioners. The handbook will:
- offer an introduction and persuasive argument for the use of dialogue-oriented programmes in democracy assistance and conflict prevention;
- help enhance the capabilities of officials tasked to implement dialogue-oriented programmes around the world;
- be a starting point for the development of training programmes and curricula for development of professional dialogue facilitators.
The handbook is scheduled to be published in mid-2005.
