 Hello, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests and fellow advocates of democracy. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to this year's International Democracy Day event. Today we come together not just as participants but as passionate advocates of a cause that lies at the core of our shared global vision, the cause of democracy. Your presence here signifies your commitment to upholding the principles of democracy and we are sincerely honored to have you with us. Before we embark on this enlightening journey of discussions and insights, I would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to International Idea, the permanent mission of the Government of Costa Rica at the United Nations, and the dedicated partners of the Global Democracy Coalition for hosting this event. As someone fortunate to work with this organization, I can attest that their dedication to promoting democracy and their unwavering support in organizing this gathering is a testament to the importance of collaborative efforts in advancing the democratic cause. We are privileged to stand alongside them in celebrating democracy's enduring spirit. Today we come together on a day of great significance, International Democracy Day. It's a day that transcends borders and ideologies, reminding us of the fundamental values that underpin our societies. As we celebrate the achievements of democracy and reflect on the challenges it faces, we acknowledge that our work is far from complete. This event serves as a platform to deepen our understanding of democracy's role in achieving the sustainable development goals and aspires to ignite meaningful conversations that will drive our efforts forward. But before I continue, allow me to introduce myself. I am Elisenda Valloste Bouchaud, the coordinator of the Global Democracy Coalition, and I am truly humbled to serve you as the master of ceremonies. My role today is to ensure that this event unfolds seamlessly, guiding you through our discussions, introducing our esteemed guests, and maintaining energy and flow of our conversations. It's an honor to be your host and I look forward to a morning feel of enlightenment, inspiration, and meaningful exchanges. Our agenda has been thoughtfully crafted to delve into the intricate relationship between inclusive democracy and sustainable development. We will begin with the introductory remarks to set the stage for our discussion. Following this, we have two panel discussions, each addressing key aspects of democracy and its impact on society. In between, we have dynamic lighting talks that will provide diverse perspectives. Throughout the event, we strongly encourage active participation and eagerly await a vibrant Q&A session. Finally, our closing remarks will summarize our key takeaways and emphasize the profound importance of our continued efforts to strengthen democracy on a global scale. So without further delay, let's start. We are truly fortunate to have a distinguished figure who embodies the ideals we hold dear. Dr. Annika Silva Leander will deliver our opening remarks. Dr. Silva Leander is the head of the North America Office of International Idea, but she also serves as International Idea's permanent observer to the United Nations. She champions democracy at the UN General Assembly and other global forums. Dr. Silva Leander is an opinion leader on democracy contributing through analysis and speaking engagements on the state of democracy, particularly within the UN and other pertinent international contexts. Her prior roles include leading the Democracy Assessment Unit at International Idea in Stockholm, overseeing the global state of democracy report and the global state of democracy indices. Dr. Silva Leander's expertise and dedication to the cause of democracy have been instrumental in shaping the narrative of democracy on the global stage. Her insights will undoubtedly provide us with valuable context and inspiration and as we explore the intricate interplay with democracy, inclusivity and sustainable development. Dr. Silva Leander, we are eager to hear your thoughts and profoundly grateful for your presence. Good morning everyone and warm welcome to this event celebrating International Democracy Day here at the UN. We could not find a more symbolic place to hold this event as International Democracy Day was proclaimed by the UN for the first time 16 years ago with the purpose of promoting and upholding the principles of democracy throughout the world. In doing so, the UN invited all member states, civil society organizations and other stakeholders to commemorate this day by using it to raise public awareness about the importance and the value of democracy. And this is particularly important at this moment in time when democracy and democratic values are being challenged in many parts of the world. These concerning trends are both driven by an impact on countries' abilities to deliver well-being, sustainable development and inclusive growth to their citizens. Ultimately, democratic backsliding impacts on the ability of countries to deliver on the 2030 agenda. International Idea is proud and honored to co-host this event in celebration of inclusive democracy here at the UN together with many of our partners in the Global Democracy Coalition in collaboration with UN and International Idea member states. For International Idea, this day is the most important of all UN days because our mandate as an international organization is to support advance and strengthen democracy around the world. And we are a unique intergovernmental organization in that regard as our 34 member states, democracies from across the world have committed to democracy as a regime and as a set of values and principles in their own countries, but many also in collaboration with each other and others in the multilateral and international space. So we are here today to put the spotlight not just on democracy, but on the importance of inclusive democracy for the achievement of the 2030 agenda, an agenda where no one is left behind. Whether they are women or girls from indigenous communities, the LGBTQ plus community, people living with disabilities, migrants, refugees, young people, people living in poverty, religious, racial, linguistic and ethnic minorities, all these voices and others need a space within democratic systems as active participants, voters and decision makers. And we also know that too often these groups face unsurmountable barriers, both in newer and older democracies and not the least in non-democratic contexts, to make their voices heard, to participate in decision making and to actively engage in their societies. Democracy at its core is about representation, equality and the protection of individual rights, yet in many parts of the world countless individuals and communities still find themselves on the margins of these democratic processes. Their voices stifled, their concerns ignored and their rights denied. So first and foremost, we must recognize that democracy is not just about voting, but about participation and active societal engagement. The very essence of democracy hinges on the idea that every citizen should have the opportunity to influence the decisions that affect their lives. But when marginalized groups are excluded from this process we undermine the very essence of democracy. By denying them a voice in decision making we perpetuate a system that favors the privilege while neglecting the concerns and needs of the most vulnerable among us. Including marginalized groups in democratic processes is not just a matter of fairness though, it is a matter of improving the quality of decisions as well when we exclude voices from different backgrounds, experiences and identities we miss out on a wealth of knowledge and insights that could lead to better policies and more equitable solutions. Inclusion allows us to tap into the full potential of our collective intelligence. We also know that marginalized groups often bear the brunt of social, economic and political inequalities. They are disproportionately affected by policies that fail to address and to consider their unique challenges and needs. And without their input our democratic processes can perpetuate these disparities. So including marginalized groups in democratic processes also helps promote social cohesion and unity. When individuals in communities feel that their voices are heard and their interests are represented they are more likely to trust the institutions of democracy. And inclusivity fosters a sense of belonging and shared responsibility, ultimately strengthening the bonds that hold our society together. So how can we ensure that marginalized groups are included in democratic processes? To do that we must begin by dismantling the barriers that have historically excluded them. And this includes addressing issues like voter suppression, discriminatory electoral practices and unequal access to education and information. We must also actively seek out and support candidates from marginalized backgrounds and create opportunities for their voices to be heard at all levels of government. In addition civil society plays a crucial role in amplifying the voices of marginalized groups. NGOs, community organizations and advocacy groups serve as vital channels through which marginalized communities can express their concerns and mobilize for change. And so supporting these organizations and listening to the recommendations is an essential step towards a more inclusive democracy. In conclusion, including marginalized groups in democratic processes is not only a moral imperative but it's also a practical necessity. So we will today hear from our speakers on the importance of including marginalized voices to ensure that inclusive democracy advances the 2030 agenda for sustainable development through their own stories and experiences. And we are also co-hosting this event together with many of our partners in the Global Democracy Coalition which is a unique multi-stakeholder coalition that was formed in 2021 to provide a space and a platform for civil society organizations, international institutions, academics and others to discuss and exchange good practices and knowledge in democracy building and to engage in multilateral fora on democracy initially around the summits for democracy. Costa Rica that is co-hosting this event with us is a valued member state of international idea and of the UN that together with us and others have committed to advance inclusive democracy within its own borders but also in their region. So thank you Ambassador Chan for being with us here today. So it's Canada and we are very honored to have with us today former Prime Minister Campbell. Thank you for being partners with us on this journey of democracy. So we would like those of you here today both those in the room and those that are listening in online to come away from this event with a sense of hope. I hope yes we are a long way away from an inclusive world where no one is left behind. There are many setbacks on the path to achieving the 2030 agenda as will be discussed next week at the SDG summit but we hope and just as we hope that the heads of state that are present at the UN General Assembly next week will recommit to the goals set out in the 2030 agenda with concrete actions and resources weighing this room and listening in from across the globe play a key role in raising awareness about the importance of building more inclusive society putting pressure on governments to turn their words into action and support marginalized communities in making their voices heard. So happy International Democracy Day to all of you and let the conversation begin. Thank you. Thank you so much Annika for your enlightening remarks. They have indeed provided a profound context as we start our discussions. Now we turn to our attention to a lightning talk that has been thoughtfully prepared by our partners within the Global Democracy Coalition the American-Russian Speaking Association for Civil and Human Rights. Joining us are Ms. Lyovov Stasiv a former Ukrainian member of parliament and Dr. Dimitri Glinsky the executive director of the American-Russian Speaking Association for Civil and Human Rights both of whom also serve as co-chairs of the Ukrainian and Russian-American anti-war roundtables at the organization. They will be sharing their valuable insights setting the tone for the first panel. We thank the Global Democracy Coalition for the honor of operating it today. Connecting participation and inclusion with peace and justice has a special meaning for refugees and exiles from dictatorships and war. Russia and Syria, Venezuela and other autographs have pushed millions abroad by persecution and fear and in Ukraine this was done by the Kremlin's barbaric aggression. All this sets us back on a path to sustainable developmental goals. Yet here is a paradox. The refugees are some of the most marginalized and excluded and yet also some of the most influential change agents. From the earliest Greek tragedies to the sculptures of the present day Chinese exile Ai Weiwei the refugee stands out as a key witness before the court of history testifying about the social and moral norms of her native and her recipient country. In her testimony challenges the limitations of our democracies. Torah the foundational book of Abrahamic religions set as one of our developmental goals to treat the stranger the way we treat our own. Yet our strangers today keep facing high barriers to acceptance and inclusion even where decisions are being made about them. And even in New York they may get demonized and at times silenced by the wealth and connections of those from whom they fled. I've seen this up close and yet most of them keep contributing to their new societies in a multitude of ways. Most of them appreciate the difference between what they left behind and what they may eventually gain. And many have learned from experience that peace without justice for the victims and their victimizers will never last. They have higher stake than some of the more privileged groups in the success of the summits for democracy and the global democracy coalition agenda as a joint counter offensive against their oppressors. They are the natural allies for all those working to make our democracies more inclusive and resilient against autocratic and oligarchic challenges at home and abroad. Giving them voice across our institutions starting with those that are supposed to help them would add strength to pro-democracy forces around the globe. Our association of refugees, exiles and other migrants from former Soviet countries of Europe and Asia is proud to add to this effort. To amplify people's voices for a just peace that would make Ukraine whole, we've been bringing Ukraine and Russia and diaspora activists together for dialogue among themselves and whenever possible with global audiences like you here today. Thank you for listening. What an inspiring talk and a great way to introduce our first panel. This panel is dedicated to exploring the challenges faced by marginalized communities in accessing and participating in democratic processes. The panel will also emphasize strategies to address these barriers and foster inclusive democracy. Furthermore, it will shed light on the importance of gender equality, SDG 5, reduce inequalities, SDG 10, and the promotion of peace, justice and strong institution, SDG 16 in shaping inclusive democratic processes. Through this exploration, our panel aims to deepen our understanding of how inclusive democracy can contribute to sustainable development and create a more equitable and just society. So allow me to introduce our distinguished moderator for the first panel, Mr. Musa Kondo, the Executive Director of the Sahel Institute. Ms. Kondo, a former Special Advisor to the President of Mali on Governance, Democracy and the Rule of Law, is a renowned figure in the fields of journalism and civil society. With nearly two decades of experience in community development, particularly in engaging youth and promoting civil participation, he has made significant contributions to sustainable development. Mr. Kondo is the founder of the weekly newspaper Les Preses de Mamaco and has previously directed Accountability Lab in Mali. His commitment to fostering leadership, accountability, and integrity among youth has led to his placement in key positions within organizations like the World Bank, UNDP, and the International Organization for Migration. His influence extends beyond his home country as he chairs the APRM Youth Network and leads the Progressive African Network initiated by former President Olesegun Ovasanko from Nigeria. We are deeply honored to have him guide our discussion today. And I will also like to extend a warm welcome to our esteemed panelists who have generally joined us to share the insight and expertise in promoting inclusive democratic processes and citizen participation for peaceful and just societies. Their dedication to this cause is truly commendable and their diverse backgrounds will provide us with a multifaceted view of the challenges and solutions we face. Moussa, the floor is yours. Thank you so much. I'm very pleased and happy to be here among you to talk about this important topic on International Democracy Day, what is impacting the most my country behind all and also many places around the world. The panel we have right now is, as you said, mentioned right now on inclusive, promoting an exhibit democratic process and citizen participation for peaceful and just societies. And I'll be very honored to introduce the panelists here with us, starting with an Excellency Ambassador Mariutechan, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica. A permanent mission of Costa Rica to the UN. A seasoned Costa Rican diplomat becomes Ambassador and Permanent Representative as you have the document with you, the United Nations in August 2022, making a history milestone as the first Costa Rican women in this role since her country joined the United Nation in 1945. So starting with the question about the first question, how social norms and existing power structures contribute to the marginalization of certain communities in democratic processes and what strategies can be employed to challenge and overcome these barriers. Related to SDG 10, we're challenging social norms about what we're trying to do, combining democracy and development also in terms of inclusivity. So, Ambassador. Thank you very much and good morning to all of you. Today is the Independence Day of Costa Rica. And I'm delighted to be here of the International Day of Democracy because democracy is not just a system of government, it's a way of life. That is the way that Costa Rican have chosen to since we became a republic. I would like to extend my gratitude to all of you in this audience. Your presence here today is a testament to your commitment to these vital issues. Your questions and contributions will enrich our discussions. The topics we're about to delve into, democracy, inclusivity and sustainable development are not just buzzwords. They are the cornerstones of a better future for all, a world where we promise not to leave anyone behind. In a world that is facing complex challenges in my country is no exception. Dialogues like this are more than important. They are essential. We must emphasize that these discussions transcend natural borders. Democracy, gender equality and justice are global goals. And their attainment is intertwined with the collective actions of nations and societies, not dimensions that united nations as a whole. So here we are because we believe in the power and democracy to create a more equitable world, a world where no one is left behind. So I look forward to your insights, experiences and strategies and to hear from my panelists, fellow paladins, together we can explore the ways to challenge the status quo, to smash patriarchy, empower marginalized voices, promote justice, peace and sustainability. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ambassador. I just want to add before I move to the next panel is Ambassador Chan is deeply engaged with the international and regional organization and civil society and academia. She is a member of the international advisor council at the international peace institute in New York and holds a leadership position in several UN agencies including vice president of the 2023 executive board of the united nations development program, the united nation population fund and the united nation office for project services. She also presides over the UNICEF executive board in 2022, leading a significant field visit to Thailand before her current role Ambassador Chan held various positions within Costa Rican missions in the United in New York and Washington DC. She began her career as a senior speech writer for the president of Costa Rica. Thank you so much, Ambassador, for your first words. The next panel is Ms. Emilia Seis-Croisendo, Secretary-General of the United United Cities and local government UCLG. Ms. Emilia Seis... I'm sure I pronounced it correctly. Thank you so much. She's the Secretary-General of the United Cities and local government. She worked with the international movement and local and regional government in different cities, capacities since 1997, leading the programs and initiatives on institutional capacity building the participation of women in local decision making and decentralized cooperation. She played a critical role in setting up global text force for local and regional government and as followed and represented local and regional government in iconic international processes such as the Rio and Beijing plus 20, as well as the climate agreement, the SDGs and the habitat three and facilitated the contributions from local constituencies and the United Nations process. Ms. Emilia, thank you so much for joining us. This first question is like a global thought on the topic and also your first thought. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Chair, for giving us the opportunity to be here with you today. Thank you to International IDEA and to the Global Democracy Coalition and to the Ambassador of Costa Rica for the continued work that is being done in this very important topic, Happy International Democracy Day. Democracy is not perfect. No system is and I don't think it has ever meant to be very perfect because it needs to evolve. It actually works. It needs to evolve with us. And what we are facing today is how democracy is coming to be under stress. It's under stress because of the many complex emergencies that we are going through, but also under stress because democratic systems have forgotten part of the citizens. There are many groups that do not feel represented in our democratic systems that do not trust the institutions and that is leading to big questioning of the system itself. It is tangible in any street, in any neighborhood around the world that when people do identify with their surroundings, with their neighborhoods, with their reality, and how much trust they put in the institutions that represent these systems. And the danger that we are facing today is not only because of war or autocracy or climate change. It is because of the lack of trust that we have in those systems that we are questioning their foundations. We feel as organized constituency of local and regional governments around the globe that it is at local level where the basis of democracy needs to be strengthened, constructed and ensured. And that is through the implementation of human rights and freedoms that we will be able to do that. But we will need to do it in a very tangible way, addressing the needs of people and making them responsible as well for their own needs, but the needs of future generations. And this is the trick here. How do you actually do that? How do you create this environment of trust? You need to address the hate discourse that is there, it's very important. You need to evolve in the new situations. You need to apply new democratic architecture to a changing system where artificial intelligence is playing a very important role in the way that we perceive the world, in the way that we get information. But we also need to actually apply very tangible changes to our systems that are actually very outdated. It's also very difficult to update the local systems of democracy and the local architecture without taking into account the international architecture of decision making. Any citizen right now feels a bit citizen of the world. They can buy anything anywhere. They can experience the world through the eyes of others that are miles and miles away from themselves. We feel what happens, the stress, the climate, the stress that happens in one part of the world affects directly into our day-to-day life. It's very difficult to detach the kind of decision that we'll need to address those challenges from the local decision. If we look at the state of democracy from that perspective, our architecture is very outdated and we cannot only deal with it at one single level. It will need to be at multiple levels. In this first round, I would like to share with you that while we know that the multiple crises are challenging our democratic systems because they are technocratizing decision making and are leading people to think that democracy might not be the efficient system to address what we have. A very dangerous narrative. We also need to look at complex emergencies as triggers for democratic innovation and as motivations for citizens to become proactive agents for change. Look, tomorrow we start with the SDG summit. The local and regional governments are going to meet here. There will be no democracy without empowered, educated, healthy people behind the system. We need to link these agendas there. We think the local level is the place to do it. Thank you, chair. Thank you so much for your first words and these are exactly what this conversation is all about. Inclusivity, connectivity, and also how to make the new or every voice like voice heard. From the Sahel, I can definitely say how this is very important because it's not about speaking French, speaking English, or speaking the official language of the government to let or left some of the citizen behind. Because one day they will start getting awake and worried about what's going on around them as the internet and all the things happening in the global village today as we are through the connectivity, they will start fighting for the right and will not be prepared for that. So thank you so much for mentioning that. I will just going to introduce the next speaker. This is Mr. John Romano, director of the TAP network. Mr. Romano is the director of the TAP network, based in New York, prior to joining the TAP network. John worked as a stakeholder for a sweetenable feature and the natural resources defense council, coordinating global advocacy campaigns around the United Nations post 2015 sustainable development agenda. He also worked for the United Nations secretariat with the UN division for sustainable development where he helped facilitate the engagement of civil society in the Rio plus 20 UN conference on sustainable development and coordinated the UN social media coverage for the conference. John as a MS in sustainability management from Columbia university and MBA in environmental studies and geography from OIO. Thank you so much Mr. John for joining us. The first question is the global you talk about the topic of the conference also what do you think about the social norm existing power structures contributing to marginalization certain communities in democratic processes? Great thanks very much and thanks to the organizers of this timely event also right in advance of the SG summit where I think we might have some democratic challenges especially from the civil society side of things and you know accessing some of these meetings so we'll talk a little bit about governance and democracy on another level but I think one thing I wanted to mention I mean the question really here today is how does governance and inclusion and decision-making I think these terms are kind of synonymous with one another. How does it contribute to advancing progress towards the SDGs and the 2030 agenda? We've already heard that you know the SDGs and the 2030 agenda are supposed to be people centered and aiming to leave no one behind so I think that's a critical question unpack I'm curious to hear actual experiences from from all of you on how that's happened in your own context as well but as a network the TAP network works on SDG 16 or SDG 16 plus as we refer to it we refer to it as SDG 16 plus because we feel that all of the issues contained within SDG 16 peace justice inclusion the rule of law human rights and fundamental freedoms accountability all of those issues are intertwined with the 2030 agenda they act as enablers and outcomes of sustainable development so for us this topic of democracy and inclusive decision-making hits at the core of our work and at the core of our over 400 members around the world. I think I can't do justice to no pun intended I can't do justice to expanding and kind of taking on all of these interlinkages but I'll just mention a few things based on some of the things that we've reflected on as a network I mean I think very obviously inclusivity and I don't think I need to sell many people in this room on this but inclusivity in decision-making helps foster more peaceful societies especially in cases of conflict either within a country or between countries this the resolution the solution really needs to be tailored to appeal to the needs of all parties so ensuring that especially citizen voices the needs of citizens are reflected in conflict resolution at all levels I think is hugely important democracies also are critical for ensuring that decision-makers are representative of their populace I think that's also a given that's not to say that it's impossible for a governance system or set of representatives that aren't necessarily representative of the populace that's not to say that it's impossible for them to take decisions that are in the best interest of their their their citizens but I think again it goes without saying that people that have these lived experiences and know the realities on the ground of different populations at different levels I think is hugely important to contribute to the discussion the dialogue and the decision-making part of democracies so ideally more representation or more equal representation is is ideal I think one particular statistic in this front is I think pretty jarring one global statistic is that 26 percent of women or 26 percent of total parliamentarians in the world are women and I think at this rate at the pace that we're going we won't achieve gender parity in parliaments for another 80 years and I think that's just not not not good enough I think from from our side how do we think about ensuring that yes in our democracies we do have more representative decision-making in in addition to this inclusivity aspect of things I also wanted to think a little bit about beyond democracy and democratic systems also think a little bit about what other ways there are to increase inclusion aside from voting and representation and things like that I think one example is around participatory budgeting I think this is a really important aspect of the decision-making process and you know they often say you can't measure political will but I think you can and it's usually through budgets it's a way to help citizens engage in a dialogue around what their priorities are and where money should be allocated within budgets because policy commitments can really only go so far we need budgets to back things up another example is around mobile court systems and this has been particularly pioneered in in countries like Kenya that help increase access to justice systems to particularly rural areas also provide support for around customary justice systems and helping citizen access alternative dispute resolution mechanisms civic justice needs and and the like I think it's important for us to raise these examples because you know I think it's especially with inclusivity and democratic systems under threat these days I think it's important for us to showcase and do a bit of storytelling of where are these inspiring and positive examples that governments and other institutions can aspire to and how can we learn from colleagues like Costa Rica for example who abolished their army which is really allowed them to focus more on the needs of citizens themselves so how can we really learn from one another around our experiences and maybe some of the cases where we haven't necessarily done so well and learn from that as well so I'm particularly intrigued to hear about your experiences and see how we can learn within this community and obviously a bit beyond there but I'll stop there and contribute to the discussion yeah thank you so much um Mr. John I'm turning now to our finalist uh the last night at least uh miss Regina love for a senior global gender advisor uh at the international foundation for electoral systems IFACE uh thank you so much for joining us um Regina serves as uh the international foundation for electoral system IFACE senior global gender advisor she works closely uh with the regional teams and field officers to implement IFACE approach to gender equality and women's empowerment programming she also provides strategic vision and leadership for IFACE gender portfolio in outreach and partnership technical advancement and innovation technical assistant quality assurance business development and program design miss uh miss fob um I'm sure I'm pronouncing it great thank you uh has more than a decade of experience in public service and advancing the right of marginalized people in particular and uh she has champion gender equality issues and the right of lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer people in her work park began her career with the federal government as a presidential management fellow in the bureau of democracy human rights uh and labor at the u.s. department of state and went on to serve as the obama administration director for human rights and gender at the white house national security council and as the chief of staff in the secretary's office of global women's issues at the u.s. department of state thank you so much miss Regina for joining us so the question is the same like uh your your your thought on the the topic and also uh I will just continue the conversation wonderful well well thank you so much um to our esteemed moderator obviously thank you very much to international idea um the permanent mission of Costa Rica uh to the united nations and happy independence day to to our colleague madame ambassador um and and thank you very much to the global democracy coalition for the kind invitation to be here and for hosting this this really important discussion i'm really honored to be part of such an esteemed panel of experts um i was going to talk a little bit maybe more specifically about kind of the sdg-5 um and the gender um elements of that so i think kind of i'll maybe start from from the the principle and the premise that gender equality and democracy are both fundamentally linked and mutually reinforcing right we you cannot have true democracy um without the equal and meaningful participation and leadership of women and girls and of course sdg-5 has charged us to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by 2030 um which you know we've got some significant work to do and i think it's really just the latest perhaps in a long list of international commitments that that our governments have made um to achieving gender equality uh particularly with respect to women's participation in political and public life and these include you know the universal declaration of human rights they include sida they include the iccpr um not to mention you know any number of of regional instruments national laws and constitutions um so not only is kind of achieving gender equality a matter of fulfilling international commitments and realizing human rights it's also fundamental to good governance um and we have any number of studies that show us that decisions are perceived as more legitimate when they are made by groups that represent society more broadly and so you're seeing this fundamental link between between representation between inclusivity and democracy um and that really underscores the need for wider representation in decision making if you have women for example as 50 percent of the population and often often more than 50 percent in many countries we should have women as 50 percent of our leadership bodies and that just underscores the need for wider representation in decision making as a key factor in government accountability um and there's also just from maybe a practical standpoint there is a significant body of evidence to suggest that countries led by women are are home to better social and economic conditions and that the presence of women leaders in national local and community level governments leads to an increase in policy making that advances rights and promotes equality and improves the quality of life for those um overlooked in society so maybe i'll just stop there like we can have a discussion about how we can further emphasize these this interchange between gender equality and democracy and what are some of the more specific um tactics to actually increase women's representation in political bodies but for my opening remarks maybe i'll pause here and we can go on with the conversation thank you so much for uh this uh your first words about uh this agg five so i would just stay with you with uh with a quick question about about the same in the same line um so what actions can be taken i mean uh to ensure the equality representative a representation and meaningful participation of women in decision in decision areas so i mean i think you know we the 2030 agenda 2030 is rapidly approaching i think john um took one of my one of my stats that i often use that women are at you know 25 26 percent of parliamentarians globally um and i i think the stats that i've heard in terms of women's political representation are even a bit grimmer i've heard something like between 130 and 145 years of general um representation general parity and representative bodies so that is going to take some concerted work by not just everybody in this room not just all the organizations that we represent but the international community writ large and so when we're thinking about because i don't think any of us want to wait that long to achieve our gender equality and represent and representative bodies i think of this really is both a supply issue and a demand issue right and on the supply side i think the supply is everywhere right it's perhaps overwhelming the number of women and girls who are already leading within their communities or have the potential to do so are already leaders and maybe just don't recognize themselves as such um they may need support they may need encouragement um they may may need some specific skill building for example they may need access to information access to that opportunity but all of that capability all that raw material all of that very often that ambition to be a leader is there right so we're not lacking for talent in these spaces there are plenty of women there are plenty of young women there are plenty of girls who are ready to raise their hands and take their their seat in a leadership role so i think the demand side is really where we all need to work and i know many of our organizations are working on the kind of capacity building side for women and girls my organization ifis does that um largely working with government institutions independent institutions like electoral bodies electoral management bodies political parties those types of things um but i think the demand side is very important because we have to support the environments in which these highly capable and highly capacitated women and girls are seeking to engage right because otherwise we're setting up women and providing them with training and providing them with with um information and and technical assistance and empowering them to engage and i don't want us to be empowering them to just run faster into a brick wall right i want them to be able to actually move forward um and this really often means working to improve the legislative environment and political environment that they're entering and there's a number of ways we've been doing this for a while and that can be you know measures such as you know increasing the adoption and i i think the sincere implementation of things like quotas and temporary special measures um and the enforcement of those those mechanisms as well it's not enough to have them on paper they have to be um out out there in the world and actually and actually enforced engaging political parties to actively recruit and support women candidates at all levels um strengthening laws against gender-based violence online and off and we're seeing more and more this intimidation and violence against women online in particular and specifically legislating to address political and electoral violence against women and a number of countries have have done that have put those laws on the books to make political violence against women on the basis of gender a specific crime um and then i think just the last the last piece of this is really this requires a cultural change in in the societies in which we all live which are largely kind of based in this patriarchal attitude um and one that is often unfortunately openly hostile to women and girls raising their voices that's just true so we need to be working with and ifus works with men and boys to be better prepared to serve as allies and upstanders to the women and girls in their homes and in their communities their schools and their workplaces in governments so that when women and girls raise their hands and their voices they're not immediately overwhelmed by a deluge of hostility and harassment and even violence because once that happens why would you want to stand back up again um so for example when ifus does work through our women's leadership programming which we're you know we provide both kind of hard and soft skills negotiation um budgeting how to get involved in various electoral and political processes who are working to train women so that they are best prepared to step up and step into these roles when they have the opportunity um but we also work with the men in their environment so in their families sometimes in their communities in their workplaces in government um through an allies for equality program so that those men are actually ready to be supportive to women when they come in and step step forward as leaders so I think having both of those things is incredibly important because otherwise we've seen time and again that when women assume a leadership role often they also experience a backlash in terms of violence and harassment and men the men and um need to be prepared to help um step in as supporters so we like to give them actual concrete tools and reasons to do that so I'll stop there and and let us move forward with the discussion thank you thank you so much for uh this input and uh really interesting ones thank you so much thank you um the the point you just mentioned sometimes is uh they the places uh I'll just put fingers my my own country Mali were uh at a certain moment the the national assembly voted the law uh to oblige like every single political parties and uh civil society organization in terms of position and certain uh thing concerning a quota like uh if you want to be implemented or whatever run for a poll you have to pay 30 percent of women represented agenda representative uh in this in this league so from moving forward could go why not 40 percent or an app so thank you so much for the work you're doing thank you so I will turn right to my right uh ambassador um about the inclusive inclusion and also the marginalization of certain communities what strategies can be uh uh developed or employed to challenge and overcome uh these barriers wow okay yeah I mean uh we talk about social norms and existing power structures contribute to the marginalizations okay so now what strategies can be employed um to challenge this um to challenge and overcome uh these barriers related to SDG 10 thank you very much I we just heard about the issue of quotas and quotas have helped but quotas need to translate into actual power and a voice at the table and and those and that it's not about having enough women in the room it's not making sure that we have half of the women participating in a panel it's ensuring that their voices and that their concerns are reflecting the final text of our endeavors uh affirmative actions and quotas have helped for instance in Costa Rica we started with a quota system in the 1990s 1996 or 1998 with a 40 percent quota of participation of women government then we made an amendment requiring full 50 percent of representation among candidates in 2009 and most recently whenever we have a president in the last two governments they have announced gender party as a norm the party in in the cabinet but the problem to be honest is not only at the national level let me bring this issue here to the united states at the end of the term of the current secretary general for 80 consecutive years the un will be um ruled or headed by a medal at the top um it's 80 years and this problem begins since the un charter um that states that he shall be the chief administrator officer of the united nations this error is also compounded in resolution 11 of 1945 or 46 which states that the secretary general will be a man of high eminence a man of high eminence we judge policies not for the intentions we just we just we judge policies by the results and the results so far have always and exclusively produced a man at the helm of the united nations and it took 77 years after Costa Rica signed the UN charter to appoint the first female permanent representative to the United Nations and one of the first steps I I took when I I assumed this position was to recognize the role of of of deputy permanent representative of Costa Rica who served for 30 years as deputy a woman and she was never considered as the permanent representative so these social norms are everywhere even in this organization that proclaims to champion sdg-5 and yet you should see the resistance we have when we call for a female to lead the organization because the bar for a woman is even higher she must be fluent in these languages she must have these positions and there are plenty of women all over the world who can take on this job so this road has not been easy and and and we will continue to strive because the social norms are everywhere they are in our communities asking women to take care of children that the care economy which is unrecognized and paid for it's in our families it's in our own societies and sometimes at the structural level in the most important organization in the whole world so yes we have taken steps not only in Costa Rica with the gender quotas but in this government we have appointed more female ambassadors that ever before more career ambassadors we show that we have intentionally taken steps to break these social norms and shift the paradigm that is required to acknowledge the 50% of the population do thus require a seat at the table a voice and and the opportunity to lead because if we want to change the world we need to lead thank you thank you so much for pointing in this so I'm turning to Emilia with a little bit to reform the question but in the same line what action can be taken to ensure the equality representation talking about inclusive democratic processes to contribute advancing gender equality and the participation of women in decision making well thank you very much what an interesting discussion I think that that is not about gender equality that we're talking about I think it's equality in general and and we need to address gender equality in particular because that is clearly a big failure of our civilization and and our and our societies one of the important things that I would like to to bring to this discussion is that it's not we all think oh it's it's another hundred years before we reach a quality it might be much longer actually because because it's not a linear increase I mean in some in some places we're going backwards I mean in some places we have we have seen the numbers going from 25 percent parliamentarians to 19 percent parliamentarians in some places we have seen the data going from term percent major female mayors to 5 percent female mayors which is the average and so I think it is important to to to take that into this into this slide thinking in order to to have equality you need to have women in political decision making because if you don't have women in political decision making the structures of the decisions and the type of service provision will not lead for a new type of society where women can play a role where they are truly empowered and where they are acting at equals and that is also true for LGTBIQ communities for the access for the disabled community with accessibility laws and for migrants and those are parts of the structures that we need to change when we say at the local level that the system of democracy and some of the governance architecture is obsolete we mean that you have migrants all over the world that kind of exercise the right to vote and so if we are going for a representative system it will be very difficult for them to identify with whatever outcomes of those elections are and you have you have groups with specific needs that do not identify with the decisions that are being made and so the local service provision that is that is facilitated by the by the institutions are solutions that they also don't identify with so what do you need to do for equality in general women in particular you need you need to empower them you need to educate them you need to make sure that there is a feminist approach to to decision making and when I say a feminist approach this is this is for men and women alike for girls and boys alike until we don't conceive leadership as a different type of endeavor than we consider it now leadership is not about power but about inclusive decision making we will not be making these these changes and we feel this needs to happen at neighborhood level with councils of women with councils of young people with councils for a LGBTQ community etc where where these groups are able to define the kind of policies that they need in the society that we are the ambassador was saying democracy is is not the system is a way of life and if we want to do that we will need everyone on board but let us keep in mind not every woman decision maker is a feminist not every woman that is there is making decisions in favor of women and the most vulnerable groups and that's okay because men have done this for hundreds of years so women those voices also need to be there but we need to focus on the on the quality of the equality thanks you said it the quality of equality thank you so much as John I'm turning to you you mentioned about a different aspect to strengthen democracy in terms of way of life and also the budget the participation and inclusivity I will just add also about the social justice and I've seen a lot of developing I would say democracy are facing a lot of challenges right now including the Sahel region where I'm from Mali this couple of last three years we had like six military coup just to say how democracy is challenged and how people are struggling to find their ways to make the democracy and what could be the role of certain established and developed democracy to system because it's all about defending values behind the words because democracy and how we feel it and how we live it the ambition also is about population to have people leading the destiny to be able to solve problems and also anticipate in future challenges towards the the context or towards the countries so we've seen a lot of authoritarian also regime pushing towards these countries to say this is not the good norms and here is another option you can look at and you can get your your way out because the way things corruption and also social injustice because when we talk about social justice and injustice is about frustration and the day these frustrations decide come out we cannot control and it could lead to any kind of a thing so what do you think could be the role of our engaged citizens to understand their right to be to participate and also to get their voices heard because it's not just to be to participate but how to get your voices heard whatever it is in the process aligned to STG 16 great yeah I think those are really important questions for us to think about and I think yeah I mean even thinking I mean I know it's um it seems like an eternity ago now after COVID but thinking back to 2019 and 2020 even if you remember that was a period where we had quite a bit of social unrest and protest movements I think in all regions of the world for many different reasons but I think the underlying root cause of those of that discontent was a lack of social a feeling a lack of social justice and I think when we come to the SDGs and you know you know governments report on their progress towards the SDGs and say yes okay we're doing well ABC areas I think in a lot of ways it's important for us to think about how people feel or experience that progress so administrative data the data that governments are saying these are the things that we are doing is great any progress is good progress but I think it's important for us to think about how we ensure that people actually feel connected to those institutions the policies and again goes back to that question about the trust and trust being a fundamental aspect of a functioning democracy I think when people feel like their government or their institutions aren't delivering for them in a democracy they have the right to protest and I think that's a really amazing thing but I think we also have to think a little bit about the situations where or the governments or the you know the people that live in undemocratic states or in authoritarian cases and I think this is a really I don't have the answer for this but it's an important question for us to think about because I think so according to the the civicist monitor only 3.2 percent of people live in 38 countries where civic spaces is open and 28 percent of people around the world live in 27 countries with closed civic space and restrictions so I think it's really important for us to think about yeah what is the role of champions of democracy in helping some of those colleagues a lot of civil society partners in those countries that are experiencing oppression they are either jailed or even killed in many cases just for speaking their mind or criticizing the government I think it's really important to identify champions you know like Costa Rica like others others in this space to really showcase the examples the positive and inspiring examples again going back to this showcasing of champions as was said before I think Amelia mentioned that democracy is not perfect and it's not meant to be perfect and I think that sometimes lends a little bit of an opening for critics of democracy to say look this doesn't work in all cases and I think it's important for us to showcase the positive examples to say it's not perfect democracy and this work is difficult but here are some really shining examples of where it's been done where it's been done well and it can be done in other cases and I think one final thing just to think a little bit about that the social justice and protest movement things like that I think it's also important to think a little bit about how we engage young people as well I think obviously doesn't need to be said that young people do need to play a much larger role in our democracies and decision making and I think inherently young people may have a more long-term perspective when it comes to policy making because a lot of the decisions made today will impact their futures most of all so I think a key question is how do we get young people more involved in policy or more young people involved in community-based work or even in leadership opportunities I think another key question for us to kind of think about how do we do that and again obviously super interested here from others here on experiences on all of these fronts as well. Thank you so much. Promoting inclusive democratic processes require us to have a very inclusive conversation also so inside the panel I'm turning to the audience the ones who may have questions for the panelists I'll be very happy and place it to to answer yes please oh how these functions. First of all to the ambassador Costa Rica which is a very good day to our brotherly republic and it's an excellent opportunity for giving so much visibility to the important issues we're discussing today I was listening to the panel and I congratulate you all I heard a lot gender equality and environment of trust artificial intelligence healthy and educated people democracy and equal representation overcoming barriers and democracy is a way of life. I here represent two hats I represent the Congress and the Republic of Argentina and also the international federation of libraries and I didn't hear the magic word which was libraries. This is a magic word libraries I would like to say that 80 percent of our sector is made up of women and these are women that represent their gender libraries are safe places they are secure spaces they are places where people can meet where there is protection when democracies are struggling in my specific case I come from Argentina where we had where we are celebrating 40 years of democracy we came out of awful military coups and the safest spaces for democracy are libraries and that's what I wanted to say there are many people that say that there is no future for libraries because of artificial intelligence and so on but this is totally misguided libraries are safe and secure places where we can go to find the real answers and so what I want to say to the panel is simply what I want to ask you is what do you think about libraries as a space for democracy thank you well I just want to ask a question and please if you can just be a little brief and ask the question and introducing yourself please so we can get time for more people and our panelists to interact is that another question okay please thank you thank you moderator I will make a comment I'm the DPR of Chile I'm very pleased to be here thank you Costa Rica for inviting us to commemorate the democracy it's very important and the other organizers in Chile we are in fully agreement with all the things that have been said here we cannot emphasize enough the target of gender equality you know this is the key component for democracy we talk about real democracy and inclusion in Chile we have introduced that in the electoral laws so it's very practically applied we are making progress but also we launched just last year our feminist foreign policy which includes this substantive participation of women in decision making it's not just to have women there I would like to to mention that inclusion in the terms of fighting poverty is fundamental as well this is the big exclusion historically that we need to be aware and this is the agenda 2030 this is a key component of democracy and we know that pandemics you know brought a lot of setbacks and of course human rights are fundamental for every minority every group respecting its dignity everything's intertwined and finally the role of the youth of course is critical you know they will inherit the world we are transmitting them the value so my question is I would like to have the comment from the panelists and it's a bit related to what Argentina just said the biblioteca's library but the thing of we perhaps need to take again civic formation education civica this is key you know with the hate speech and with this information in the world going around freely we need to go back to the basics which is to form the people on the basics of democracy how fragile it is before we took it for granted not anymore because there are many conception misconceptions there so I think that we should again in the schools and in many places to highlight the value of the importance of a civic formation thank you very much thank you so much for your contribution and and the point is there another point okay madame okay yes madame yes i'm lin win for vietnam democracy center a partner of alliance for vietnam's democracy how do free and fair elections impact on the advancement of democracy authoritarian and totalitarian uh go down to the path of oppressing its people and destroying civil society and the road to to a sustainable partnership is when the partner shares our value in rule-based order the partner should champion free and fair elections including the free and fair nomination of candidates we have adopted a scoreboard for free and fair elections for 47 criteria as a litmus test in the hope that the totarian society will inch toward and be closer to our shared values as the vietnamese regime become more authoritarian and repressive the people's voice become marginalized 95 do not have a voice the actual barrier is the ruling regime there is no gender equality justice or strong civil institutions we look forward to working with you in advancing a democratic uh asia my question again is how do free and fair elections impact on the advancement of democracy okay thank you for your question uh due to time sensitivity uh apologize we'll just answer your questions so um uh yeah ambassador please thank you very much for all of these questions that we had from argentina and chili for the rest of you um i usually tell my delegates that excellence is a lifestyle same as democracy and excellence in the united nations and for a united nation's delegate is it's um portrayed by the quality of their writing and the quality of their writing is a direct consequence of the quality of their reading and and i it's no surprise that books are burned when crisis come and when humanity is facing the worst times so i appreciate that you mentioned libraries and and and and books as a reference and as a key as a beacon of democracy of showing that democracy is fully functioning another point that i want to make is that democracy is fundamentally a political process that requires youth a youth indifferent to politics or annoying by politics or has given up with politics is not enhancing the cause of democracy on the contrary such youth is actually sitting power to those who believe in war or conflict as a legitimate legitimate means to resolve in what can be done on by dialogue and or at the negotiation table so we need to pay attention not only to women and youth to women and girls but youth in general because we're missing a crucial piece of the puzzle and when we youth is disenchanted with politics or annoyed with it we we do not know what will happen because the means the quality of democracy might decrease because it's very easy to to get to them through media social media and ads but not with ideas and proposals and what makes democracy strong with strong institutions and strong public policies that can be sustained throughout time so that is my response to the first two gentlemen i thank you thank you so much ambassador is oh yeah please thank you and i'm i'm very keen to provide maybe a brief answer to all three questions and i'll try to do so quickly um so maybe on the first with respect to libraries i will answer perhaps not as a representative of ifis and maybe just as a citizen of the united states where we're seeing like honestly a tremendous pushback in the availability of free information on all manner of topics including issues related to women including issues related to lgbt qi plus people so i think we can't take for granted and we shouldn't take for granted that that freedom of information which is available right now in so many libraries in so many school libraries is going to be there forever so i really appreciate you mentioning libraries as an important civic and democratic space and i think we all need to just be aware that we need to have our our our we need to be ready to protect them as well because we're seeing in the us at least that that is not a given for all of our our state and local lawmakers which is of course very disappointing and i think that does speak a little bit to our our colleague from chile speaking about the importance of civic civic education and that's a big part of the work that ifis tries to do around the world and i think in addition to to bringing those those concepts back into our school curriculum are all around the world about what it means to be a citizen what it means to to live in a pluralistic society where there are multiple voices multiple perspectives that were that were honoring and respecting and how we have free dialogue and and how we can make space for multiple identities i think that's exceptionally important and then in those places where perhaps we haven't yet done that you know for for children all the way through there's still this opportunity when we're trying to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to register to vote for example you have to sometimes go to people you have to take that that those efforts out into the community to reach people in rural areas to reach people who have been internally displaced within their countries that requires effort as well so not just with voter registration and and that type of information but what does it mean to vote what are you what are you what does it mean to be a citizen who's participating and what does it mean to go to a community forum and so that that i think is is exceptionally important and then to the last point on you know free and fair elections and the relationship to democracy free and fair elections are of course an essential element for democracy but elections are not democracy it is entirely possible to have an election that looks good on paper that has nothing to do with the way that govern on election day right everybody can go and vote maybe there's not any outward violence outward restrictions and people casting their ballot but if there have been restrictions in in at every moment leading up to who shows up on the ballot what's the point of an election if you really only have one party what's the you know we don't want to let a technically fair election or a technically competent election stand in for democracy and mask what is often significant democratic irregularities in the actual governance of a country so just to say that democracy is much much much more than free and fair elections thanks thank you so much thank you um i'm inviting uh miss emilia for yeah i want to pick on on that and also address the three issues that that have been raised um democracy is not only about the elections and however important that component is indeed but it is about co-creating a community around around democracy and this is why the local level is so important and also we consider libraries as part of that public space it's not only about the books in the library but about the community that you create around the books and when i was saying that for democratic system to to be sustainable we need to to have informed and and and healthy people um i was referring uh to uh to this to this indeed but in the era of interconnected individualism that that we live i think we will need to redefine what democratic system implies and redefining this will also need uh to look at where our participatory democratic exercises have been failing because they have been treated a little bit as pilot projects not included everywhere including everyone not upscaled enough and and and um engaging only parts of the population and and i think in this redefinition of of those exercises we will find many answers on how people will embrace the the the system or not and it will be responsibilities indeed of all of the public spaces and all of the empowered civil society um to actually also challenge the the decision-making architecture about the type of policies that will need to be implemented this is what democracy is about and i think it links with civic education but about co-creation of not only policies but also responsibilities thank you thank you i'm inviting mr john if you have a talk about the questions sure um yeah a lot's already been said so i'll just um provide a few um quick thoughts um yeah i think on the on the library's side of things i mean i think it's it's really interesting i mean we talk also about the civic education side of things um as well and i think taking a look at the fundamental freedom it's not just an access to information exercise thinking about all of the fundamental freedoms uh that are enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights uh sdg 16 uh also in many constitutions of governments um i i think uh libraries can help facilitate and kind of project uh all of those fundamental freedoms not just that one one aspect their own access to information um and i think one thing um you know coming back to the the other question about um uh the impact of of election free and fair elections i'm intrigued to learn more maybe we can connect after this about your own measurement of um you know how you're assessing um you know elections and fundamental freedoms in in your country i think the one thing this kind of reminds me or brings me back to is during the negotiations on the sdgs in 2014 and 2015 a lot of the pushback against sdg 16 was that uh sdg the detractors said that peace justice inclusion human rights that it couldn't be measured and i think those of us in this room those of us that work on these issues really deeply know that it's actually the opposite there are many ways for us to measure inclusion and participation and justice and human rights and i think if anything i think that's the challenge on how do we zero in on okay this society or this government is inclusive or are they not because there are many ways to measure that and so i think it's just really important because i think most authoritarian governments i would say would if you confront them and say um you are not inclusive or you're not participatory or you are authoritarian um they would probably come back and say they aren't so i think it's a question for us to think about the data and uh the evidence base for this how do we ensure that there are data points or uh work that's being done um to help us push back and say this is where we need improvement these are the countries that uh citizens are left behind most frequently and again i mentioned the civicus monitor as just one example of of efforts to do that but i do think um there is a role to play uh from colleagues and partners here champions here uh at the un um to help push back against some of those uh you know the the countries that might uh say that they're being inclusive uh but may not be and using some of that evidence base to kind of um be the foundation of how we hold those governments accountable at the international level um there's another thing for us to think about going forward as another opportunity how do we build a community that can help do that and support champions and partners to push back when it's needed so uh thank you so much is uh uh mr john yeah so i invite you again to give a round of applause to our panelists we are 11 30 unfortunately this is a great conversation we could continue continuously having uh uh site so my last word and thanking you so much say democracy requires balance in many spheres and in functioning democracies institutions are invested to protecting that equilibrium so thank you so much for uh being here and uh the audience for this uh panel thank you so much thank you very much thank you so much thank you so much to our panelists um i will appreciate if we can change the panel as quickly as possible as we are already a little bit late um but uh thank you so much to to the panelists to the participants who pose such provoking uh questions and such powerful statements like democracy is not a system is a way of life that ambassador chen uh just mentioned your insights have sparked engaging discussions that will undoubtedly shape the future of democracy so before i introduce our second panel we have uh another lightning talk lined up this time our partner westminster foundation for democracy will set the stage for the second panel so miss acilia mancoyala the head of practice and inclusion at wft will share some intriguing remarks that will encourage us to reflect on what lies ahead for the second panel thank you you're a famous political leader is it jfk i don't mean literally i mean does the leader share his characteristics are they from the economic and political elite the dominant ethnic and religious group are they not too old not too young married are they a man if not thanks so due to the phenomenal woman whose existence shifted your idea of what leadership looks like but she and you are for the most part anomalies while these phenomenal people can change those images they cannot on their own change the norms and resulting narratives that produce them the dominant idea of political leadership is inextricable from masculinity creating enormous barriers for women and non-binary people particularly those who are minoritized and othered due to racism classism homophobia transphobia ableism and religious intolerance when someone overcomes these barriers that we place on them they are often expected to change the very system that has excluded them for so long that's not just unrealistic it's unfair and sometimes they just don't want to westminster foundation for democracy recently published a study on women's political leadership in southeast asia it found as is often the case around the world women leaders primarily come from the wealthiest and most politically connected families these privileged identities meant they could navigate negotiate or completely circumvent gender barriers several said that gender wasn't an issue on their relatively short route to leadership and once there they reported that they had little to no incentive to change a system likely because it had ultimately benefited them although the report is from asia elite systems reproduce themselves everywhere and the findings are consistent with studies globally intersectionality means allowing for the plurality of stories that exist at once the funding and political landscape don't make this easy but if our efforts to widen access to power are not intersectional nothing will change in fact we might be maintaining the inadequate status quo by reinforcing it with people who already have access to power and allowing them to be weaponized by those who resist change to distract from and even legitimize systemic inequalities in representation it matters that each of us can see ourselves represented but the emphasis on visible markers of identity is only about visibility which is something but not enough to achieve the substantive representation required to respond to the diversity of our life choices needs perspectives and the identities that inform them our energy should be directed towards shifting and ultimately transforming the masculinized norms that shape political structures cultures and incentives that means understanding the extent to which institutions rather than individuals can demonstrate substantive representation of the diverse communities that constitute the public the ending we're seeking demands that our institutions tell and accommodate more in different stories so we not only see ourselves in them but so we can be every version of ourselves in the safety and freedoms that democracy promises us all well indeed Cecilia's remarks have provided valuable insights and served as a fitting introduction for our second panel as we navigate our evolving global landscape the influence of social norms on both democratic institutions and sustainable advance advancement remains undeniable these unwritten societal rules can either catalyze or hinder the achievement of critical sustainable development goals therefore it is essential to scrutinize these norms particularly within the context of sdg-5 gender equality sdg-10 reduce inequalities and sdg-16 peace justice and strong institutions so through this lens we can better cultivate a global democracy that is truly inclusive and prepare us for enduring progress this panel aims to spotlight these norms challenge their continued relevance and strive for a future where every voice resonates and community thrives i just want to remind you that we have a spanish interpretation since one of our panelists is spanish speaking but to introduce this panel we are honored to have a special guest today miss pia onek the ceo at dt institute miss onek is a season leader in international development and humanitarian assistance boasting two decades of experience in policy development program design and project management within the global nonprofit sector prior prior to joining dti she spent nearly 10 years at global communities where she directed humanitarian responses and development projects in 24 countries including syria ukraine liberia graza ethiopia watemalla kosovo on duras srilanka and yemen miss onek began her career with usa id office of u.s. foreign disaster assistance focusing on emergency response programs in east and central africa her ability to convene diverse stakeholders to address complex challenges is a hallmark of her career miss pia the floor is yours thank you esteem guests today is a world that is constantly changing evolving and adapting and in this shifting global landscape one thing remains undeniable the profound influence of social norms on both our democratic institutions and the pursuit of sustainable development these unwritten societal rules often act as either catalysts or barriers to the achievement of the sustainable development goals today i want to take a closer look at these norms particularly in the context of three vital sggs goal five gender equality goal 10 reduced inequalities and goal 16 peace justice and strong institutions at the heart of this landscape are social norms those unwritten often subconscious rules that govern our behavior and decisions social norms are deeply ingrained in our societies and often dictate how we perceive the world and interact with one another they act as powerful forces either propelling us towards progress or holding us back social norms play a significant role in perpetrating gender inequality from the workplace to our homes they shape our perceptions of what is normal for those we identify as one in men and women but we've seen how challenging these norms can lead to more inclusive and equal societies and when we shirk gender stereotypes we can empower individuals and create a world where everyone has access to the same opportunities social norms can either reinforce or challenge inequality they often determine who has access to education health care and economic opportunities and when we seek to challenge these norms we inspire a more equitable society in the realm of peace justice and strong institutions social norms are crucial norms that promote tolerance fairness and the rule of law contribute to the stability of societies conversely harmful norms can underline institutions and perpetrate conflict transforming these norms is essential for building strong just and peaceful nations in conclusion understanding and challenging social norms are essential steps in fostering a more inclusive global democracy a democracy where the voices of all citizens are heard regardless of their gender race or background a democracy that values equality and justice as its core principles it is within such a democracy that we can lay the foundation for enjoying growth and development the commitment to supporting the development of more inclusive global democracy is one that we share at DT Institute as an agile non-governmental organization and one of the global democracy coalition steering committee members DT Institute is first and foremost a peace and development organization driven by our commitment to improving the human condition in the panel we will delve deeper into these themes and explore concrete strategies for challenging and transforming the social norms that can stand in the way of progress thank you mentally Pia for your profound remarks they have served as a perfect introduction to our second panel I will now introduce our moderator Mr. Vukasin Petrovich who has dedicated his professional and academic career to promoting and protecting democracy human rights freedom of expression and media Mr. Petrovich has been at the forefront of responding to social and political challenges supporting social change and reforms in countries affected by conflict political transition and authoritarian rule Mr. Petrovich leads DTI strategy for promoting and protecting human rights and democracies overseeing a portfolio of media technology and human rights programs he also directs policy engagement with governments and multilateral institutions such as the u.r. government or the european commission I also want to extend a warm welcome to our esteemed panelists who has generally generously joined us to share their insights and expertise thank you so much Vukasin thank you thank you Alisenda and as someone who as Alisenda mentioned has dedicated its career to protection and promotion of human rights I have to say I am delighted to see us paying more attention to social norms and if someone 10 years ago told me that we are going to have two panels back to back at the united nations talking about social norms and its importance for democracy and sustainable development I would not believe it you know and I have to say I am proud that I was proven wrong and more importantly I am proud that we have proven wrong so many people that they encountered in the past that used to blame communities or social groups for not advocating for their rights because of the lack of perceived the lack of political will or perceived lack of demand for for their rights you know and I'm happy to see that over the last 10 to 20 years we as as the community have been on a journey to explore the system of unwritten rules and realize and understand what and how we can support communities and how we can empower them change perception about them and their and change perception and their perception of the world that surrounds them in order for them to be more advocate for their for their rights so questions such as how do social norms shape the creation of societies how do norms around gender roles affect progress towards gender equality and what tactics can we utilize to advance norms that champion inclusivity and sustainable growth has been on my mind and on our minds for all this time and to help me this answer these questions today I'm joined by a group of extraordinary people who through their lives carried many different heads there were activists development professionals academics and policymakers and it is my pleasure to introduce first Dr Nancy Ocali Nancy's renewed activist who paid a high price for her pursuit of justice and equality as the director of the freedom house in Egypt she was one of NGO workers that was convinced and sentenced to prison after that Dr Ocali continued to work on human rights and governance issues across minna region and worldwide and today she's president and CEO of the center for international policy and she's the first woman to lead CAP in its 50 years history in addition to Dr Ocali it's also my pleasure to introduce miss Mercedes say and miss Mercedes says a human rights leader from the Mayakish nation she's a founding member of the national council on indigenous people in the diaspora and she has dedicated her life to in to protection of human rights indigenous people in addition to miss say and miss Ocali Christian Lamere is a senior program officer and new death and he brings us with us or he brings to us experience both as someone who has spent his career working for the UN in many different places including very challenging places such as Afghanistan and Mali but at the same time as someone who has worked on the other side of this I would say divide and has worked for civil society organizations and international NGOs on promoting elections and political processes in in developing at that time developing countries and finally Ivan Marovic who is also who was also one of the leaders of a social movement back in the 90s that played critical role in democratization of Serbia and since then Ivan Marovic has been advising numerous pro-democracy social movements around the world and became one of the leading educators in the field of strategic nonviolent action and today Ivan Marovic is executive director of international center for a nonviolent conflict so to move on to the questions Nancy and Christian I would like to pose you first a question and I would like you to help me answer how essential are inclusive representation and diverse viewpoints instructing democratic systems and sustainable development. Thank you Vuk and thank you so much for having me today speaking about this very timely and important topic and certainly not a new one so I'm I think I'm going to start by identifying why the issue of inclusivity and diversity is crucial for stability security in peace and justice and not from a rights-based perspective because if you have been paying attention to Washington DC and also other capital in the world the the fashionable world these days is real politic so I'm going to play with that and see not just because it's a like people's rights to participate and be part of the policies that are shaping and influencing their lives but also looking at it from a very pragmatic and an effective way. The fact that we have exclusionary spaces in policy makers in policy making especially when it comes to issues related to SDG 16 it means that we are always going to have a partial view of reality so when we're talking about real politic the reality we're talking about if reached through exclusionary spaces it will always be partial and we when we have partial view we have inadequate analysis and we end up with solutions that are not effective because they are not adequate and they're flawed so this is the first one. Second the inclusion of various stakeholders in the process of forming policy whether we're talking on a multilateral level or the UN or we're talking on the level of a local council participation guarantees sustainability of the policies that we promote people have a stake and have the interest to maintain and sustain those policies and finally if we are looking at change and always struggling on why change is not happening it's basically common sense if you expect that the same people who are sitting at the table forging those policies are the ones who are going to participate and in exclusionary space making those policies you cannot expect any change. Now none of this is new everything I just said you've heard it several times before many many types of arguments in and approaches and there were a lot of attempts to change that but the question is I mean why after all those years and why after all those debates and arguments and evidence things are not changing I think I have a few issues just to share briefly and I think the reasons could be seen as issues of misassumptions and designs and because these issues have been recognized are crucial for a very long time programs were forged for that and this is when I start to worry once we turn in an issue on a problem into a program although this seems a progress there is more often than not the risk of falling into a reductionist way of looking at things and I worry even more when that program turns to be an acronym like DAI diversity equity and inclusion because it's kind of over time turn it into a process or a way of dealing with the challenges that we're having without actually addressing the root causes and the first one relate to social norms if we assume that we can have a structure or a particular space that we try to implement DAI programs and others and that immediately would change how things go it's an illusion because this space is part of the bigger larger society and there are no changes in the larger society then we cannot think that we're going to parachute people into a space that looks and feels different but it's coming from and is seated within a society that has all those problems and that's why we cannot talk about SDG 16 without SDG 5 and 10 and the previous panels have talked extensively and impressively about how this is important the second issue and the second mis assumption is that when you bring marginalized group into the space and put them in positions of power that those are going to be just and and fair to other similar and fellow marginalized group if you bring the woman she's going to be just and fair to other women in the space if you bring the person of color he's going to be just and fair to the person in that space this is a myth because if you bring those in the same and very structured that is unfair we cannot expect that there will be change and the other mis assumption is that just because you have those people in the room it means that there's progress there and there's inclusivity because I mean I think Emilia alluded to that in the previous panel is that which women and which people of color who come and sit in their space I mean in Egypt for example I mean the current regime pride itself of the number of women who are in the cabinet or in like different council and the parliament but which women those are the women who are close to the power circle who advocate and stand by and maintain the very unjust system of that space because the problem starts with the last or like the the the main point of of the bottom of like those assumptions and their problems is that if you bring people into a structure without changing them they and they are coming from a a marginalized group or a this privileged place they will do their best to fit in they will do their best to make sure that they are like everyone else and without noticing we'll be perpetuating the very system that we need to change and this gets I mean featured or or we we can see it in how all those processes turn into tokenization let's have the panel that have a woman let's have the one that has a person of color and that becomes a way of like such tokenization legitimizes a space that is still unequal and this is why we find it hard despite the recognition of the problems of exclusionary policies exclusionary space for women for people of color for people from gender backgrounds and and and different affiliation as well these are the things that leading to the frustration that we see today because we don't really change the structure and and again like we cannot do that without looking at the connection between SGG 16 and number five and number 10 because they are closely associated when we look at those spaces the idea of elite capture is not just having elites in the room I mean I think the most dangerous process of elite capture is the co-optation of people from outside the elite and make them fit in in this elitist space so I think in order to be serious about those issues we need to go back and look at all those mis assumptions and understand the difference between an invited space and a claimed space and as also Regina alluded to in the in the previous panel is that without having the safeguards and legislations and processes in place to make sure that people who come from a marginalized group or or a space that are they're not they're from the minority do not just hit a wall every time or just go without making any change we have to make those structural changes fundamental finally just to give you like an analogy of that it's like a university claiming in its application that we welcome all people from all different backgrounds and including people with disabilities but they don't have an elevator so thank you thank you thank you Nancy Christian thank you because for those who do not know the the young democracy fund there's a slide behind me or my left to my left that will give you some facts and figures this way you will know us and might prompt some questions later it is a privilege to be here today international day of democracy has always been our our main event for the UN democracy fund in a given year and the gathering today is a testament of I think our shared commitment to the ideals of democracy and inclusion I'm going to ask a question to start what is democracy and it's not just rhetorical I would like to have an answer was someone answer the question we're all like professionals you know committed we work in the democracy world we advocate yes simple a few simple words like maybe three words can I didn't know that it would not work though yeah the one next to you works sorry for taking so much time with it's important it's not on okay there we go I'm going to give it a shot my name is Vivian I think democracy means ability to govern one's affairs ability of a like a community or a group of people to govern their own affairs yes so you're talking about the people right yes so democracy means power to the people from the Greek and not just the power of certain individuals in a country or in a community in this world it it means that all people should be included in governance many in this world think that a clan or a tribe or money should be the model of governance for a few but this is totally opposite to the ideal of democracy which is to empower everyone he or she or them or they nowadays so the UN democracy fund since its creation has worked with CSOs to uplift marginalized communities and minority groups to give them a voice we promote the right to participate in democratic processes and obviously to work towards the achievement of the SDGs and I've heard a lot about goal 16 goal 10 goal 5 we work at this intersection although I'll give you a few examples later of other goals we were touching working on through our projects and that is a grant making machine we're not normative we don't work on policies we don't you know make big events where we can comment on the state of democracy but we showcase our achievements notable achievements small ones in the world and to come back to the to the main question how essential is inclusive representation I will give you some examples but globally and I've heard this from everyone today around in this panel in the previous panel first how essential obviously it is essential now key ways why well because representation reflects the plurality of our societies and they are more and more diverse than they were 50 or 100 years ago people have different background beliefs and experiences and they want to as well see themselves in the government be heard because the representation prevents exclusions and the marginalization of minority voices it enhances legitimacy of democratic institutions and I've heard this as well before it's very important that divers viewpoints they make for a robust and well-rounded decision making process without consultation is the rule of a few a few examples now I'd like to give examples in Jordan we've had a project that's an organization that works on pro bono assistance in the legal and legal system and they were empowering a group that is self-created right detainees they're not born detainees but they become detainees but this is a very specific group that in many many countries of this world lose every rights they have if they had any in the first place when they become detainees so the organization GCLA in Jordan work on a pro bono assistance program for detainees and it was very successful and the government bought in and they wanted to nationalize the system make a make a program out of it for the entire country the project was able to not just raise awareness but to advocate for the detainees enter into discussion created a dialogue with the authorities not just the government but also those who implement the laws police for one and the government bought in in the Balkans another very interesting project that aimed to empower grassroots from many organizations not just to let them advocate for their rights but to let them participate in the development of policies and laws that affect them in Lebanon we have a project currently running where they're trying to improve the implementation of laws against gender-based violence again and you're going to hear me talk about this and talk about this and talk about this there's collaboration among CSOs who are creating I would say coalitions of not just CSOs but as well political movement political political parties to advocate together and obviously work with implementers judges and internal security forces one of the thing we've realized over the years at the fund is that if you work on on countering a social norm or making evolve a discussion about a social norm that affects and exclude a specific group in society is that you can do a lot of capacity building can raise a lot of awareness you can advocate to a population or to a group that's already convinced but you need to enter a dialogue with the government or the authorities or the local municipality okay and so buzzwords I've heard buzzwords before and I like it so the buzzword here is yes advocacy but dialogue and dialogue just not among a community that is committed to the cause but also with those have different ideas and obviously the government sometimes doesn't share the same ideas but there can be buy-in and it can work out and I'll come back later for the next question with more examples thank you thank you thank you Christian so Mercedes please I would kindly ask you if you can now you know do a deeper dive into how to this restrictive social norms around marginalized groups and gender roles affect progress towards equality speakers using an indigenous language good morning to everyone my name is Mercedes says thank you for inviting me it's I'm happy to be here with you this morning I was interested in the term that you just that you just used when you speak of what is democracy we have a wonderful concept on paper we can read it the democracy we can say state it but what's interesting is how how we interpret democracy from each perspective each point of view when the when there's a debate on democracy and the inclusion of women well to to hear the the concept that historically women have been excluded from political systems from the decision community decision-making systems then we cannot include the word democracy because that means that there's no there's no harmony between what is on paper and what we were practicing it's not they're not in sync so to speak of democracy for us for the indigenous peoples is much more complex complicated because historically we have been excluded from all systems that are part of so-called democracy to be a woman and to be an indigenous woman is a triple effort to try to uh enter into a decision-making process because because they believe people believe that in addition to to being a woman we're in in in capable of deciding when minority groups and i'm thinking of indigenous peoples within those groups women have been have played the most important role in protecting our natural resources in our communities and even globally one i have to say wherever there are women and strong resilient women there are sound strong social structures unfortunately we're not we're not given an opportunity to to take part in the political decision-making process in order to improve our living conditions and i'm not only talking about women but but i'm talking about communities and other minorities such as the algebraic minority the issue of the topic of democracy in addition to depending on the dominant sector for for the decision-making in our country for for for some democracy can mean just the freedom to move around but not to express ourselves so historically the topic of exclusion is very broad of major of large minorities actually and we're simply not and we're still there for for developed countries we're we applaud the the support that they provide to developing countries to try to help us improve and education training and and offering opportunities to to promote democracy how i think that one of the very important aspects that we need to take into account is that those who are who are here in this room in our own societies we can promote we can we can we can do something positive because our our historical memory is changing it's the only way of moving forward in our in our fight stereotypes and prejudices have also meant that this within states is all there's a lack of certainty cultural exclusion and gender norms have been factors that have limited democracy within our country sometimes social conditions and class conditions have meant that democracy is seen differently from different points of views in different groups as as original as as indigenous peoples we have the opportunity of having community organizations and have certain values and promote certain values had to do with harmony this has enabled us to survive and subsistence part of the assaults that we have suffered that are promoted by the democratic elites with unfortunately based on ideological blinkers and a and a democracy should be based on consensus so that our rights as men women communities minorities should be included within the system thank you thank you so much even and similar question i would like to pose the similar question to you as someone who had a chance to work over the years in dozens and dozens countries with marginalized communities so how do you see these restrictive norms you know that prevent prevent equality and prevent full participation of marginalized communities in democracy and development thank you hukash and it's an honor to be here today and to kind of connect the the international democracy day with the the two previous statements first christian posing the the the question what is democracy and from that aspirational point of view like we want to see the power and decision making in the hands of the many not the few but then contrasting that to what mercedes shared with us how actually there are many obstacles to achieving that and so i would like to add in my experience from the last almost two decades yes there is a democracy in its normative and its institutional form but also there is another form of democracy and that is how people practice it and this is in the form of social movements and in my organization international central nonviolent conflict we dedicated the last uh more than two decades trying to understand this phenomenon and trying to kind of do not just research but also documentation and sharing of lessons learned of how people engage in in in social movements and social movements being the vehicle for ordinary people to practice politics and yes we know that you know the how should i say social movements do have political impact they do have a social impact their result in legislative and and and normative changes but also they present and this is why it's important to the question that you post vocation they they present an opportunity for societies to change social norms and we can say that movements first achieve in changing the behavior of people they participating in the movement they're being moved by those movements and they change their behavior they change their beliefs they change their attitudes and they change their social norms so in a sense that creates then a climate that is more positive for normative changes that are going to take place in parliaments and they're going to be followed by you know greater representation uh and and uh how should i say participation of marginalized groups and so i will just give a couple of examples and then and then uh maybe we'll we'll we'll touch upon those uh in greater detail but but in our work in our investigation and documentation you know we can see that for instance the movements such as let's say to take an example a movement that originated in argentina maria verde uh which actually totally changed the way people perceive abortion in not just in argentina but it actually spread all over latin america it is actually an important example how a social movement can challenge the existing social norms and help society look at the particular uh how shall i say social problem or a or a social challenge in a different way uh another another one another example that i will use tomorrow is going to be a one year anniversary of the death of maxa amini in iran and the consequent movement uh woman life freedom that emerged in that country that challenged the repressive uh uh practices and social norms this is something that is unprecedented never before seen in in in in iran it it it kind of dwarfs all the other mobilization efforts that that that that were happening before and then finally you know and the third example that i will use is uh not as dramatic but i think it's it's it's very important in um two years ago in the elections in in zambia uh which were supposed to be just any elections that that that were happening in that country but what happened was the emergence of a social movement that focused on mobilizing youth and to not just vote in in the election and that resulted in the 70 youth turnout but also to vie for election to kind of create the opportunities for young people to become candidates and to win uh uh some of the races both on national level and local level actually resulted in the changed behaviors of uh and attitudes of people towards youth representation so in a sense we can see how social movements can actually use the existing norms and at the same time challenge the existing norms and transform them for greater representation lovely even thank you so much um and i i know that we have approximately 20 more minutes and i know that you folks have 3799 questions that you would like to ask us but i also have a couple of more burning questions for uh for our panelists so nancy and mercedes so uh two questions for you uh nancy first so what is that that we can do to empower these marginalized communities to capture these spaces you know so that once when they are in a position to make the difference and to challenge and introduce new new norms that they actually do that and that the second question is what is that that we can do when it comes to the public and social norms that uh that uh in a way encourage public to dismiss women and marginalized communities as incapable so what we can do about also changing that those restrictive social norms that prevent women and marginalized communities from actually uh being equal participants thank you um i think the first um thing that comes to mind and the most important one i believe is to stand away from the issue of essentialization uh essentialization of societies and promoting that or instilling this kind of essentialization under the euphemism of respecting traditions and special cultures uh or stating that these communities they're conservative by nature women are not allowed or by their religion or whatever uh to go outside of door norms so we have to respect it no there is a huge difference between paying respect and maintaining repression and paying respect actually means that you strive and and and struggle to give people choices so that it does not become an imposed structure or impose barriers on those people a lot of people particularly in western communities makes between the idea of respecting culture and essentialization and essentialization is hugely uh dangerous and it is a big hindrance for change and the other issue with your related to the second question which is not so far from that that as i said like in my first comments you cannot expect that you can create a space that has certain uh inclusivity of it within a larger community that it's not and in order to change uh like the structures and inequalities outside of that space and and and the society at large you have to speak to people in a language they understand our language is mostly and i'm being self critical here is elitist uh it's expert heavy and it does not reach the people and without access to information and access here i don't mean that the information is made public i mean the information becomes accessible so that people understand what is the problem why we need to tackle it and why is it relevant to them in the first place why do i care that women would be in a position of power how would that affect me when they actually people have this recognition in a way that is effective because most of the work of advocacy and again like i'm being self critical here in our work there's an underlying assumption of if only people knew that if people knew that fgm is harmful they're gonna stop it uh no it doesn't work this way it works on heavy and long investments in people understanding and knowing why first yes it's important if only people knew but also understanding that it is not just the knowledge but also the support for structural change that enables people to instead of taking risks of getting out of the norms working with others to change them thank you thank you thank you Nancy so mercedes very similar question to you what we can do to change the norms that encourage public to dismiss indigenous people and the indigenous woman as incapable of participating in democracy and development i think that it's a very complex problem we have had more than 500 years during which we have been struggling for our rights as indigenous peoples apart from being a significant group of women it's worth pointing out that molding norms and social forces requires a great deal of effort it requires coordinated effort and we can achieve this if the institutions and civil society organizations and individuals themselves if we together start understanding that we are part of a society when we were born we were not classified as being part of a particular group who's belonging to any particular group we must recognize that we are first and foremost all human beings we have our own ways of living ways of organizing and also we are part of our ancestors who started building a society one that was harmonious with nature and then with the environment i don't think that it is a secret to say to anyone that since the beginning of colonization of these territories in the beginning of colonialism that is when the deterioration of this society began and where we enter into this class-based system that seems to set the rules and yet we say that we are part of democracy but within our concept of democracy saying that an indigenous woman is not able or is unable to speak with wisdom or that we're unable to speak a language all of this makes us different but it doesn't make us less intelligent so i think it depends on us as a society and as individuals to start creating to start changing the way we have been thinking about this within our states and within our different types of policies it's unfortunate to see that sometimes on panels like this as my esteemed colleagues said just a few moments ago it's unfortunate that we hear about elitism in language and we don't really meet this cultural relevance independently of whether or not we are in indigenous or not we all have a cultural belonging as people and so why do we not enter into these relevant dialogues as individuals as people as parts of a world that have to live together we have to share the world without discrimination and without stigmatized classes there is a very long way still to go but i do believe that if we are united we can find the way and we can get there because we are protectors of mother earth and we compliment one another capitalism can help entrepreneurs and people from the world of academia why do not we why don't we work together and build something to make this word change for the better we have seen that the breakdown of social tissue social fabric is causing huge fault lines to arrive arise in our societies we're talking about issues like artificial intelligence about technological progress but when are we going to talk about the progress of family and family integration if a family is whole then society will also be whole if all of the members of a society are united then things can be achieved together the social fabric is absolutely crucial to move beyond the stereotypes that we have created as a society i said this thank you thank you very much and something that you mentioned resonates very much with me and even this is something that you were also talking about during your previous contribution fault lines and the fact that you know we are seeing within all our societies including democratic societies these fault lines appearing very much when it comes to how establishment or elites see social movements and that activism is increasingly seen as something dirty and that social movements and civil society organizations are increasingly portrayed and seen by public as the enemies of the state and enemies of the people so what is that that we can do to start challenging these social norms and start changing these social norms so that social movements operate in more enabling environment this is true the being an activist today is not an easy task and and yes public perceptions are rather negative about activism and about movements in general but i would say that this is not uh an organic social norm this is pretty much a result of those same elites that you mentioned that are constantly pushing that narrative and actually engaged in some sort of like a information war against their own population and especially against people who are trying to change things in those countries for the better so in a sense if we acknowledge that those negative stereotypes towards activism are not genuine but rather produced as this is kind of an important first step but i think to counter that it is really important to offer an opportunity for people marginalized groups especially like young people to engage in activism and to kind of uh kind of participate in politics in that active way so we in the previous panel like one of the contribution from the audience was mentioning of civics but i think you know together with civics there is an importance to kind of help young people learn the practicalities of activism how do we campaign how do we change people's behaviors how do we change people's attitudes like those organizational skills are also very important just to give you an example or actually refer back to the one that i uh mentioned before in zambia a group that was part of that youth campaign called girls gone political their effort was to encourage young women to become candidates for office and they provided them with support because it was really against the culture against the grain to run for office as a young woman but they provided that support network and they also provided very specific support in running their campaigns in uh creating those campaign teams and helping some of these young women win especially in the local elections and says that kind of support mechanism that is very practical actually then encourages young people and others to actually become activists lovely even thank you thank you so much and christian now going back again from you know conversation about social movements and how we can change norms around social social movements i want to go back to discussion about democratic institutions and wanted to ask you how we can tailor better democratic institutions and governance mechanisms to address these concerns of marginalized groups and become more inclusive thank you because in um i think there i think there's a few fundamentals and they've been mentioned a few times already so i'm just gonna reiterate and then give you a few examples on how things can be done first diverse representation of minority groups of all type of minority groups either indigenous or based on belief or gender having inclusive policies that address the needs of marginalized communities and vulnerable groups in healthcare education economic empowerment like across the board the effective participation of minority groups in decision making processes i've talked about this before um my colleague panelists uh mentioned access earlier access to information access to justice and also uh and this is what we strive for at the fund uh is a focus capacity building of cso's and empowering them to support those groups that need recognition that need to advocate for their rights in terms of diverse representation um talking about indigenous or vulnerable minorities in a country we we funded a project in somalia where we have uh young fellows uh working in government offices and those fellows are coming from minority groups somalia is very uh tribal plan based and um this is the first time ever something like this is done uh following a first there were there was a first initiative before but this this this one really manages to give us the space to different minority groups i would not get this space anyway if they were recruited through the normal system right in in terms of inclusive policies um in lebanon um we have a project uh that aims at confronting injustices in housing and land rights i said earlier that the un democracy fund works at the intersection of gold 16 gold 10 gold five but we work across all the goals they're all interlinked right so this one focuses on sdg 11 um and besides reporting on housing housing rights violation and injustices and having legal assistance here again they engage they create a dialogue with the government they make recommendations okay to create a change to create a positive change in terms of access to information in zimbabwe and i could say it's not the only project we've had about community radios which is often in in many parts of the world the the best way to communicate um for minorities that live and work in the rural areas um in zimbabwe uh we've had uh this project where uh the government has made a commitment and to honor a commitment on licensing community radios because this was a problem before which opens up the space for information we're talking about information before to be available um this way marginalized communities can access information and as i'll speak their language and speak about their concerns on the focus capacity building of cso's and i'm going to end with this example because it kind of bringing me to make a little announcement uh um in in zambia we we have this project uh where we uh it's a capacity building project uh where cso's work with subsistence farmers rural women groups and young people um to advocate for climate action and this is a new trend right now and obviously the world is all about climate action and uh just for for just reasons um and uh uh just to follow up on this we're gonna have an event later on today that talks about youth democracy and climate action thank you question thank you thank you very much i said this even thank you very much and thank you all very much for giving us an opportunity to talk one more time today about social norms democracy and inclusive development thank you thank you to all our panelists and the participants for engaging in such a thought provoking discussion your insights have enriched our understanding of how values social norm and democracy intersect as we approach the conclusion of the event we have one last lighting talk miss rosalie basket theater the co-executive director of our partner partners global will provide remarks that encapsulate our discussions today partners global is the founder and coordinator of a network of peace and democracy NGOs in 21 countries we use inclusive processes to promote neutral power dynamics and authentic partnerships it sounds simple but in practice it's an ongoing learning process complicated by unrealistic timelines competing priorities and different levels of competing resources so how do we avoid patterns of top down and extractive development the partners network has been experimenting with this challenge for more than 30 years our network was founded in 1989 during the fall of communism during the revolutionary wave of liberal democracy that was occurring in the former soviet block the international community at that time rallied to promote democratic values and principles that would help civil society to function and actually to be created in the first place at that time partners then called partners for democratic change raised funds to promote peace entrepreneurs these individuals would get seed funding they would receive peace building methodology support and organizational management skills so that they could launch their own peace centers and we would be there to help communicate and navigate the complex transition ironically 30 years later our network is experiencing a new dangerous set of restrictive policies programs and regimes putting NGOs and democracies at greater risk than even before i won't be discussing our peace building work today instead i wanted to emphasize the inclusive processes within which all types of development programming should be booking in the face of fragmented civic space so first let me take a minute to ask you to reflect on the definition of inclusive democracy at its most basic level inclusive democracy is the equal distribution of power at all levels it's important to ask ourselves if the distribution of power is level in each step of our development progress design implementation adaptation and evaluation this basic awareness of power dynamics can have a huge impact on our achievement of inclusion as a necessary and valid component of sustainability and democratic change through an external evaluation of the first 25 years of partners global's work we were able to extract examples of inclusive practices that improved our programs and allowed us to help integrate sdgs 16 10 and 5 in particular we also identified which approaches were counterproductive and disempowering i will now share the three examples of what not to do first number one avoid confusing participation with inclusion partners and vulnerable groups can be invited to events to sit at the table but that does not reflect an inclusive approach in and of itself you have to ask yourself were those individuals involved in the design of the agenda were they given an opportunity to lead a discussion not just provide testimony of the challenges that they face were they invited to assess the impact of the activity and the achievement of the indicators if not then it's likely that inclusion wasn't achieved number two avoid at all costs speaking on behalf of marginalized collaborators they can speak for themselves when planning activities we should always ask ourselves where are our colleagues from differently able groups look at you sitting next to you today look around the room who is missing or who is underrepresented and at times you can't tell because there are other types of differences in our abilities so keep that in mind when planning your next meeting or event we have to challenge ourselves to keep these questions at the forefront of our planning in order to normalize what is an authentically inclusive approach and number three do not pretend that there is no power to see equilibrium in your partnerships in development assistance if one side is bringing in resources and the other is receiving there's always a power dynamic at play the only way to diffuse it or to reduce its impact is to acknowledge that it exists and to have a joint plan on how to minimize the negative impact requiring a great deal of trust and transparency so take a moment now to reflect on what partnerships you're involved in which side in the position has greater power which side of that power are you on and what can be done to improve this dynamic that was a summary of a few of the practices to avoid now we'll focus on the positive number one do ensure that your activities are culturally and linguistically appropriate one of the struggles we often have in localization is that many concepts and approaches are not conveyed in all languages this is because language is a reflection of culture sometimes the reason we can't say something in a language or we need a more flexible design is not due to language constraints themselves but rather because of differences in culture that are hard coded in human behavior and are only reflected and visible in the language that we choose so if local partners are approached as equals in the design phase cultural and linguistic validity will more likely be achieved this increases trust and local buy-in from all stakeholders and more than likely will have a positive effect on your sustainability goals number two do ensure equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise not be included this includes those who have physical or mental challenges and members of minority groups access to knowledge and tools equals power and in a world where technology is being used to perpetuate digital insecurity it is imperative for the most vulnerable to receive tailored support and protections in this area number three do ensure that your teams are trained in conflict sensitivity the ability to identify conflict drivers de-escalate tensions and reduce the potential to cause unintended harm to communities is a vital skill set for NGOs irrespective of what sector that they work in during the time of rising polarization our network colleagues have identified this technical area as an essential capacity for all of their teams this has been a small sample of the feedback we've collected additional findings were analyzed along with responses from over 50 NGOs and other stakeholders around the world who shared their views on sustainability with us we incorporated these resources into an approach called the resiliency plus framework you can see that on your screen now the achievement of the sustainable development goals isn't taking place in a static environment it's a complex and often volatile ecosystem that will require resilient organizations and authentic partnerships let's all make a shared commitment to explore our own organizational practices and approaches and identify where we can improve our systems and processes to make this a more democratic inclusive and resilient sector thank you certainly not least we are deeply honored and humbled to have former prime minister of canada and member of the club de madrid miss kim cambell join us to deliver the closing remarks miss cambell is a former prime minister of canada and she served in 1993 becoming the first woman to hold the office previously she has served as minister of four indian affairs minister of justice and attorney general minister of national defense and minister of veterans affairs after becoming leader of the progressive conservatives and prime minister she implemented radical changes to the structure of the government this included the redesign of eight ministries and the abolition or merging of 15 others additionally miss cambell consolidated more services for the canadian people by creating three new ministries health canadian heritage and public security throughout her career miss cambell has been deeply engaged in international issues including law reform criminal justice international trade and security miss cambell it's an honor thank you thank you very much it's an honor to be here um i came i i wanted to sit through all of the panels today and they were absolutely excellent and i thought that i would be able to do an easy reprise of the main points made but unless we are prepared to spend the weekend together i can't do that so let me just use the few moments that i have to tell you first of all what i'm doing here i'm actually in new york because yesterday i participated as a member of a global commission on climate overshoot and we uh presented our report and had our our press conference and my colleagues at the club de madrid of which i'm a founding member said well you're in new york would you like to participate in this wonderful democracy event at the un and particularly because partnering with international idea which was been a partner of the club of adresonship was founded i was very happy to do this and and i'm very very pleased and actually i think i once did some things with the international center for the study for nonviolent conflict so many of that my my past is coming back to me here if all these wonderful people uh involved in in organizations that have been important to me inclusion and barriers to democracy are really fundamental the club of madrid incidentally was formed in 2002 after a conference in madrid the previous fall on democratic transition and consolidation and it brought together current and former democratic leaders and there was such an interesting chemistry between the former leaders who weren't running for anything i could be very candid and open about the challenges that they faced and the current leaders who were interested to meet people who had been there and done that and get their advice that we thought there might be a purpose and a role for an organization that would bring together former democratically elected heads of state and government and we started out with 34 uh members and now have over 110 and it's the largest forum of former democratic presidents and prime ministers in the world and when we were formed in 2002 we were celebrating what many people talked about the third wave of democratic transition as you may recall some of you who are old enough how optimistic we felt and how wonderful it was to see countries of the former soviet bloc working to create democratic governments it was just it was wonderful changes in latin america it was really a very exciting time but today we're not feeling quite so optimistic in the course of the club of madrid's development we've tried to look at what are the challenges to democratic development and one of our most important program is called the shared societies program and it's very much linked to your discussions today because uh as we identified 90 of the countries of the world have minorities of at least 10 and what we try to do in our shared societies program was to create a toolkit of things that could be done to help countries create truly democratic governance in the context of divided and varied and diverse societies and many of the things we've talked about are things that you have raised today there's been a lot of wisdom and and and experience a number of years ago i attended a meeting in the hay which was involved in discussing whether the european union should create something like the national endowment for democracy should it create a democracy promotion body and although i once spoke to a group there and said you know you already are a democracy promotion body because the the process of exceeding to your eu membership accomplishes things that you know voluntary political reform never could political reform is one of the hardest things even for mature democracies but with the a key of policies that and countries need to adopt in order to have eu membership they were able to leapfrog all of the all of the arguments my my club of madrid calling valdas berkovs who was prime minister of latvia during that period of negotiations said that his negotiators would come back from brussels and they'd say we have to do this because brussel says we have to do it and he was saying no we need to do it because it's good for latvia but you'd never get it through parliament just because it was good for latvia you really had to have that other carrot and stick and so in fact eu membership turned out to be a very valuable uh device for for helping countries move to democratic reform but i remember in that meeting in the haig the late uh ralph darendorf or darendorf gave opening remarks and he said the fundamental uh characteristic of democracy or condition for democracy for our our poor discussion earlier is not elections they are necessary but not sufficient condition it is the rule of law it is this notion that the the law will will protect and that we you are governed by laws not not by people but as we've also talked about today the law is not distinct from social values and those of us who have made the laws understand how much they are in fact a reflections of those who get to make them and that is why this notion of inclusivity um and and uh and diversity for for good decision making is so important and in my own political career i have learned so much from sitting down with people who were not at all like me and had totally different values and i they have kept me from making some really stupid mistakes so um it's a really important uh important aspect but it also means that the democratic narrative is essential we all tell stories and we all have stories of our countries and sometimes those narratives are wonderful and sometimes they're very dangerous i think about the indigenous people in my own country who would say our exclusion from the narrative i mean there are good narratives if you read about the role of first nations women in helping to open up the west they they were a liaison often between the early fur traders the husband's bay company people and their own communities they played remarkable roles but the roles of so many people in our societies are not written into the narratives are not written into the history so one of the most important things we have to do if we are committed to inclusion and and the ability to achieve our goals by an inclusive embrace of every aspect of our society is to ask what are the stories that we're telling what are we saying about people why do young children learn about certain members of the society and that can be different ethnic groups different groups of immigrants indigenous people etc and particularly the gender differences for women myths and stereotypes have been a constant issue when i became prime minister of candidate nobody who looked or sounded like me had ever done that job before and i have to tell you that for the Ottawa press gallery this was a serious shock and and and difficulty because i just didn't look or sound like anybody who done that job and so every time we we we broaden the net every time we bring new and different people onto the landscape of who gets to make the decisions we change people's sense of how the world works little children who grow up seeing a gender diverse and ethnically diverse society and people of all different colors sizes shapes levels of ability sexual orientation playing important roles in their society have a very different view of how the world works than people who have a much narrower view so we need to have the narratives that come from the landscape itself from what people see and the stories that we tell i was telling somebody yesterday about uh my own view about how you my own narrative and my own understanding of the world has changed i sometimes say my life is consisted of learning and unlearning many things but may most of you are probably not old enough to remember when title nine passed in the american congress in 1972 and this was the law that said that if there were programs funded by the federal government they had to be equally available to men and women and this included sports and of course that was a very shocking thing because many people said well girls don't want to be involved in sports as much as boys do and you know isn't that how we we keep men from becoming totally uncivilized you know we throw them into teams and they they you know work off their their energy but what would and and i knew birch by who was a senator who was uh part of the congress that passed that legislation and i remember later meeting him and saying you know i don't know if in 1972 i would have supported that because i might have assumed that there was more interest in athletics you know in colleges and schools among men than among women but i would have been wrong because what was interesting is that once title nine passed and all of a sudden there was funding for women's sports out of the woodwork came all of these women who wanted to play on teams who wanted to play in sports and it was a very important lesson to me you can't tell by what people what people can do or what they want to do by what they are doing because what they are doing is what they're able to do what their society lets them do and when you take away those barriers you suddenly discover people doing amazing things whether it's people you know becoming scientists or athletes or whatever uh where where previously they hadn't been admitted into those those circumstances and so this sense of the narrative is so important a number of years ago the new york times introduced a new feature in its obituary column called overlooked no more which presents obituary articles about remarkable people who because of their gender because of their background or whatever were not written about when they died and you read some of these stories and you go these are amazing people why don't i know about this person and every time i read a story about an amazing woman an amazing person i've caught her somebody who whose story i didn't know i feel cheated i think i needed to grow up knowing that person when i saw that film hidden figures about the three remarkable african-american mathematicians slash computer programmers who actually made nasa possible if you haven't seen the movie find it i'm sure it can you can find it online but aside from it being a remarkable story i mean and the incredible racial you know prejudice that they dealt with but these extraordinary women one of them a mathematics prodigy but i i felt cheated i said i have been diminished growing up not knowing about that because not knowing those stories plays into my kind of lazy bigotry my expectations that the world is as i see it and we all have it and when we understand we have it we can struggle against it and once we struggle against that we start telling the narratives then we begin to enshrine that inclusion in the law in rights in anti-discrimination and we give people vehicles that they can use in a democratic society to protect their rights to be included so one of so much of of populism i think is based on is fueled by false narratives by people who tell exclusionary stories i remember you know we just had the the anniversary of 9 11 which was a terrible thing but i remember the the islamophobia that it engendered and that it's a credit to to president or zombie bush that he made an effort to avoid that and to try and make sure that this did not become an excuse to target islamic members of american society but i remember i see people say well you know what have what have muslims ever done and i'd say i'm uh how about algebra i mean there is a whole culture and history and contribution that we don't know about a woman called noises McSweeney has just published a book called the west a story in 14 biographies where she writes about people who were integral to the sense of of what we call western culture but we're not the traditional suspects it wasn't just an unbroken line from classical greek and greece and robe there were so many people from around the world and so many different types of people who contributed to what we think of as as this western culture which is really not so west and maybe not always so cultured so my last comment is that a number of people have said that democracy is not perfect and incidentally libraries are at the heart of this capacity to to to to steward and share knowledge and whenever people are out burning books you know that's a sign to to get nervous but democracy is a blunt instrument it's not a precision tool it is something that has to constantly be fostered developed perfected uh improved and it is fragile because it's various very norms can be used to undermine it and we see this happening where people use the institutions of democratic society often to pursue goals that are not very democratic american democracy was a model because it was founded on a document that represented an idea and i mean people would would would aspire to have something so so similar and in canada when we created our own charter of rights and freedoms this was considered in our society an opportunity to have an actual constitutional document that would articulate our rights and give us an instrument against which we could we could measure whether governments were observing those rights but this week senator mit romney uh announcing his retirement said that many of his colleagues don't believe in the constitution and this is a very worrisome thing and it undermines again this notion that that democratic values uh can be under threat that democracies need to be protected that they are they are a constant commitment that we all have to have to observe and that social values are essential because we see that where the values of inclusion are not present people will try to undermine the democratic structures in my own experience i served at all three levels of government in canada and i strongly support the notion that local governments are very important and often people's view about democracy depends on whether their potholes are getting filled or whether their schools are being properly run and so all levels of government in a democracy are extremely important for its credibility i dealt with many difficult legal issues particularly as minister of justice when i dealt with issues like gun control and gay rights and and sexual assault and i learned there what what you've talked about is the importance of consulting and in fact one of my successors as justice minister was asked if she wanted to follow the Campbell mode of consultation which went far beyond the usual suspects that a justice minister usually spoke to about the legal reform and as i say people taught me so much but yesterday i just wanted to finish by saying yesterday i was at the presentation of the our presentation of the climate overshoot commission and one of our recommendations is of course that fossil fuels have to be phased out and we think it needs to be done in a differentiated way that the developed countries have to take the lead and do it but after the our discussion about all the things that in our report somebody said to me do you think that democracies can phase out fossil fuels do you think a democratic politician could run on a platform of phasing out fossil fuels and be elected and that was a very interesting question because of what it says is that democracy is facing so many challenges that where there are vested interests and powerful financial interests and people who do not want necessarily for governments to govern in the interests of everybody that democratic politicians and policymakers really have their work cut out for them so celebrating democracy today on international democracy day is such an important thing and thank you for all of the wisdom and wonderful experience that our panelists have shared today thank you for remembering that we didn't get here by accident a lot of people paid with blood with reputation with disappointment and and dealing with oppression and discrimination to get us to a stage where we can sit in this wonderful room and talk about this great value but i want to say it's an honor and a pleasure to have been here with you today to say to you that that i for one am committed to the fight and i know that there are so many people who are because without democracy none of the challenges that we face in this world will be resolved and so this has to be our life's work thank you very much due to the time we need to release the interpreters so now we will just have English but thank you Mrs Campbell for your inspiring closing remarks they do encapsulate the significance of our discussions today and the imperative to continue our efforts to fortify democracy worldwide so since it's 105 i just want to thank everyone for being here for joining us for international democracy day goodbye and take care thank you