 Hello everyone, good morning to those that are on this side of the Atlantic in eastern standard time and good afternoon to those that are in Europe and other regions. Thank you so much for joining us today for this one hour webinar which is part of open government week, which is hosted by open government partnership. This week is aimed to share lessons learned and push for ambitious action plans and policies to strengthen open government and democracy throughout the world. And it's meant to bring together open government reformers inside and outside of government with countries, citizens, governments and civil society all over the world joining in the conversation. This webinar is hosted by international idea and accountability lab in partnership with the open government partnership as host of the week. And we are all partners in the global democracy coalition which is a coalition of more than 80 democracy organizations throughout the world that have come together ahead of the first summit for democracy to collaborate together with the aim of strengthening our collective voices in shaping the global democracy agenda. So it is in this framework that we wanted to organize this session on the summit for democracy on how the summit process and the year of action can support open governance and strengthen democracy globally. As you may know the United States government announced in 2021 that it would host two summits for democracy to bring together countries and civil society leaders to shape a global agenda for democratic renewal. Over 200 participants joined the virtual summit in December 2021 and 2022 was dubbed the year of action ahead of the second summit to be held in the first half of 2023. Since then the global democracy landscape has profoundly changed for the war in Ukraine, challenging many of the assumptions that underpin the first summit, but also highlighting the importance of following through on these commitments, particularly those related to strengthening to rather, transnational, skeptocratic networks that enable authoritarian regimes to sustain themselves, but also fighting malign attempts at foreign interference of different kinds. At the first summit countries made verbal commitments to strengthen democracy at home and abroad, and we're asked to submit written commitment to be implemented during the year of action, and to be reported on at the second summit. The second summit will be an important opportunity to take stock of how democracy has progressed between both summits. And these commitments, particularly the written ones are an important accountability mechanism for civil society and citizens to hold governments to account for the implementation of these commitments. So far 59 out of the 98 countries that participated in the summit so around 60% of countries that participated in the first summit have submitted written commitment. And of those more than two thirds focus on open government, including measures to fight corruption and to increase transparency and access to information. An important initiative also launched by the summit organizers have been the creation of thematic multi stakeholder cohorts that aim to bring together countries, civil society, and international organizations and experts around specific focus areas of the commitment, for example, labor rights, financial transparency, or civic space. As a year of action is taking shape. We wanted to organize this session to hear the perspectives of both countries that are actively engaging in the summit for democracy process, as well as civil society organizations to hear how they are engaging in the year of action, and how they view the summit process, and its role in strengthening both the open government agenda and the global democracy agenda. So we would like to hear from the panelists how the summit for democracy year of action can help foster democracy, build accountability and ensure open government. And also how they think the summit for democracy process can adapt going forward to ensure sustained results. We are very lucky to have with us today, government representatives from Norway and Canada, and civil society representatives from Nepal and Congo DRC to hear diverse perspectives of the summit process from both older democracies in the north as well as newer democracies in the global south, both from the government perspective but also from the point of view of civil society. So, thank you so much to the panelists for taking your time today to be with us and share your views and contribute to this important discussion. Special thanks from international idea to Canada that we have the honor to have a chair of international ideas council and member states in 2022, and also to Norway, a long standing partner and valued member states of international idea. So let's start the session with the panel discussion hearing the views from our panelists on a few questions that we will post them. We will then open up the floor for questions from the audience. And we will end with a few concluding remarks from blank blank course from accountability lab and then we will end with a few concluding remarks from our panel. So let's get started on the panel discussion now and I will start by asking our first speaker Emily reveal from Canada to present her views. Emily reveal is currently deputy director for the democracy policy team in the office of human rights freedoms and inclusion at global affairs Canada, and has a 20 year career behind her in the Canadian Foreign Service. Emily Canada has developed an ambitious set of commitments to strengthen democracy both domestically and internationally. Could you tell us a little bit more about how Canada sees the summit for democracy process, the value of the initiative. In Canada's perspective and what you hope that the process of the summit for democracy can contribute both to Canada's democracy agenda as well as to the global democracy agenda over to you. Yes, thank you, Annika. Thank you very much for the question. I would like to begin by extending my appreciation to international idea and accountability lab for organizing today session. These types of exchanges between governments and civil society are an important element of the summit for democracy process. So I'm very happy to be here. Thank you. Canada participated actively in the summit for democracy in December 2021 and continues to be highly engaged in the follow up process leading to a second summit. Both our Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs were involved with the latter focusing her participation around the day zero event on media freedom. Canada issued 35 domestic and international commitments across the three themes of the summit which were democracy human rights and anti corruption. We think gathering of democratic states was overdue and we are very thankful for the US exercising its leadership in this way. So to start off, just some context that can situate how Canada approaches the summit. First of all, Canada has undertaken to make democracy a core foreign policy priority. Although Canada has long championed democratic values. This is an area where we think we need to be even more engaged. And also defenders of democracy need to come together at this critical time with the rapidly growing influence of authoritarian states we must seize all opportunities to reinforce the international community of democracies and civil society. We believe actually the summit has already succeeded in several ways and one of them is the fact we're here today right. The summit has brought global attention to challenges to democracy and reminded us not to take democracy for granted. It created momentum for increased cooperation and action by democratic governments. And it mobilized collaboration among civil society organizations themselves, which is leading to increase cooperation as well with governments. The ongoing year of action sets the stage for countries to take tangible steps to strengthening democracy, both domestically and in their international support. Throughout the year of action, we need to take advantage of the existing mechanisms where relevant for implementation and accountability, including through the open government partnership. To this end, Global Affairs Canada is working closely with Canada's Treasury Board Secretariat, which is the lead on the OGP to ensure linkages between Canada's commitments made at the summit and Canada's National Action Plan within the OGP. And as Annika mentioned earlier, we're currently chairing IDEA. We are very happy still to use our roles as chair of IDEA but also of media freedom coalition as co-chair and freedom online coalition to ensure complementarity with the summit and as avenues for engaging all stakeholders. And now in terms of what the summit can contribute to Canada's democracy agenda. So the summit has raised the profile of democracy issues across our domestic agenda. It required us to engage departments in Canada that typically don't think of their work or their initiatives through the prism of strengthening democracy internationally. But it's clear that these linkages had to be made and had to be, these have to be reinforced for efforts on democracy at home and abroad. And at the international level, we are already building new relationships to tackle emerging issues through summit related initiatives, and we hope to leverage this for further norm building. We're also in close contact with the US and other partners on the way forward, including on the establishment of the issue specific cohorts that Annika mentioned, and we expect to be particularly engaged on the one on media freedom and on information integrity. And of course it's crucial that we already start thinking on the efforts after the second summit because efforts will not end with the second summit. I would also like to mention that we heard clearly from civil society that the country's submissions generally speaking have been underwhelming perhaps. So where appropriate Canada hopes to use the process to encourage other states to seize this important opportunity that we see here. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Emily for these insightful views very good to hear that Canada will be engaging in the media freedom and information integrity cohorts. And also, these insightful views of how the summit for democracy process has helped to raise the profile and put democracy on the agenda. I think it's very useful of Canada's government agencies to help see their work through the prism of democracy. I think it's been very useful to hear that maybe you could tell us also, and I think those that are listening in are also curious to understand in a nutshell, maybe if you can describe and summarize the main priorities that Canada has laid out in its own written plans to strengthen democracy domestically and abroad, and how also Canada has planned to involve civil society in that process. Yes, sure, of course. The summit to place shortly after the swearing in of a new government in Canada, which allowed which complicated things but also allowed for Canada to announce an ambitious forward agenda. So as I mentioned previously, Canada announced 35 domestic and international commitments across the three themes of the summit. And these commitments are currently being implemented and we look forward to reporting on them at the next summit and discussing new avenues for cooperation. It's some good progress towards convening a national high level multi sector around table to look at options to strengthen the international legal framework and architecture to combat corruption globally. That was one of the commitments amongst the 35. There are some other items such as establishing a Canadian Center for democracy that requires some more time for implementation but we're working on it. The value of the summit that is that it keeps us accountable and focused to deliver on this agenda. And regarding civil society engagement. Yes, the engagement with civil society is fundamental to Canada policy development across the federal government already includes significant engagement and consultation with stakeholders that are based in Canada. Many of our commitments drew from these regular and ongoing processes. For example, Canada hosts regular consultations on human rights and the summit for democracy now features as one of the items in these meetings that's discussed there. And of course we also drew upon the consultations in the context of the OGP process to develop and finalize our next national action plan. Well, just 10 days ago ago, sorry, our Minister of Foreign Affairs held a session with leading Canadian expert experts on democracy, as did our parliamentary secretaries, the one to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and to international development. And those were with Canadian and international experts on democracy. And we expect to have more regular engagement of this kind in the long term. Finally, because we are, you know, the the Foreign Affairs Department of course we're using the year of action as the basis for our missions abroad to increase their engagement on democracy with stakeholders on the ground there. Thanks, Annika. Thank you so much for these perspectives. Really interesting to hear both the consultation processes that you're carrying out with civil society organizations and how the commitments have drawn from those also how your domestic and international projects link to each other and form the basis for both domestic and international policy. And I think also an important issue that you raised. And that is valid for all countries engaging in the summit processes is not creating new processes but building on what is there and complimenting existing efforts. So your mention of the important linkages with, for example, the OGP, the open government action plan and the engagement in the open government partnership process, as well as the freedom online coalition, I think it's very important because there are already ongoing initiatives in several of these areas and leveraging those through the summit, I think is very important. So thank you so much for these perspectives. I think now we'll turn to another part of the world will turn to Nepal and we'll hear also the civil society perspective of how civil society has engaged with the summit process in the Nepalese context. I'm here from Narayan Adikari, who is a Nepalese social entrepreneur governance innovator and social justice activist. He's a co founder in South Asia representative of the accountability lab. And in his current position he's pioneered a number of creative tools for accountability and open government, including pioneering a television show called integrity icon. As well as an open government advocacy movement around accountability for gender rights, and many other initiatives that he's led so we will be very interested to hear from you, and Narayan about the Nepalese perspective the government of Nepal has submitted written commitments to strengthen democracy domestically. That's part of the summit for democracy process. So from the civil society perspective, how do you use the summit process and these commitments and do you think that the process will provide an important tool for strengthening democracy in Nepal and if so in what way. Over to you, Narayan. Thank you, Anika. Thank you for the opportunity. This is great and I congratulate the idea international accountability lab for doing this important events, and this is very important and timely. Let me give you a little bit of a little bit of background about how Nepal work and how Nepal works or performs in the space of governance and accountability. If we look at the indicators from the index of public integrity, for example, we our score is 5.32, which is about, you know, 50% of, you know, that shows that there's a, there's that needs to do that needs to do a lot in terms of improving open transparency, citizen participation service delivery and all. So, we are really good at budget transparency. And I see there's a lot of civil society, working on promoting budget transparency of the public institutions. We are really really low on online services. You know, just the half of the score like 5.5 on the administrative transparency. You know, in terms of judicially, judicial independence, freedom of press, governance. So freedom of press, we are, I think we are, we are, we are okay in terms of the global average. So this shows that there is a, there is an ample of opportunities to promote open governments, transparency and accountability. And there is also constant to promote, you know, to promote these areas. And I clearly see the opportunity here through this, you know, commitments mentioned from from our government towards the summit for democracy. And relating it to the open government partnership. Also, Nepal is eligible since it's an inception. However, we are not the memory of unfortunately, Nepal. I think got Nepal has got 75 score out of 100 to become eligible for an open government partnership since begin big since the beginning. And it still remains the same. So, you know, this, this situation shows that Nepal is advancing, willing, however, there is no substantial results that we have, we have got from the government in terms of, you know, opting open government partnership, for example, and to really fulfill the commitments that the government usually made in the international forum, like summit for democracy. Talking about the commitments. There are five commitments, the mainly five commitments and all these commitments are are very important commitments. I'm very glad that the Nepal made these commitments. Although I have some comments on the commitment which I will share later, but the commitment number one is to really about, you know, increasing women access to foreign employment, like, you know, ensuring their safety, securities and welfare. As well as, you know, you know, supporting women's the domain, you know, women's that works on domestic workers, for example. However, we have issue about, we have issue about women's that there are, there are wanting to go as a domestic workers in the, in the Gulf countries. Are facing, you know, several challenges and they are, you know, the visit visa for women's, for example, are still restricted. And they are not really allowed to freely move to these countries. There's another commitment is related to migrant workers, foreign migrant workers again, that the government has promised that they will work with the destination countries, you know, in an enabling environment, you know, for the, for the Nepali foreign workers, you know, their right to, right to, you know, their human rights, right to get, right to fair pay, safety, and to really end up, you know, human trafficking and exploitation. And the another commitment is about, you know, you know, to eliminate harmful traditional practices such as child marriage, dowry, witchcraft, chow party. And one of them were, you know, to, to, you know, amend the bill against a city attack, for example, which I think is one of the specific commitment that comment has made. And we have the AC attack bills, however, the new, you know, the audience hasn't passed it. So hopefully it will, it will pass in the next parliamentary session. There's another, the fourth commitment is about related to transitional justice. So according to the, you know, the Supreme Court verdict that the government should consult with the victims, while amending the transitional justice act, however, this hasn't done properly. And this is in the process. And finally, the very important one in terms of corruptions is to review on CAG, because this is a time to review on CAG and to review on CAG based on our new constitutions international standards, which is, which is slightly happened but hasn't got the full picture it because it requires a lot of consultation from the civil society, private sectors, and other stakeholders. Just talking about the commitments, which, which we found as the civil society, the commitments are important but they are vaguely defined. You know, for example, the government commitment that usually the value of Nepal is to live with dignity, safe and prosperity. And I really thanks to US government for providing such opportunities for government civil society media and business to consolidate their interest efforts and advocacy to review to renew Nepal's democracy because all these commitments are very, very important. You know, SDZ, sorry, S4D processes, in my opinion, and also I can say that the comments from the several other civil society organizations where happened very quickly without knowing the obligations after presenting these commitments. So there's that, you know, our government, especially the prime ministers, when he showed up with the commitments, thought this is simply a traditional speech. So, so without understanding the real process, it's obligation to fulfill within the air of action. So they made these commitments, these commitments are important. There's a lot to do. There's a lot to do. This needs to be, you know, this needs to make specific needs to break down in terms of what are the indicators that that we can that we need to work to fulfill within the year, and how civil society and other stakeholders can help to really make this happen. And to really, you know, use this opportunity to promote, you know, the governance and accountability. And also this is also a point to leverage to push the government to opt for open government partnership. This is this is the easy entry point and because Nepal is always eligible, there's a lot we can we can use as evidence to show that how government is working already well as an incentives to really push for open governments. And I see there's summit for democracy commitments and the open governments as in they are very similar and they are really helping to each other reinforcing to each other. And, and I would, I would imagine like, you know, the government would have all government would have also work more with the civil society had more consultation before. You know, before presenting these commitments, however, there's a lot to do to really make it happen, make it more concrete and to really advance our democracy and accountability. Yeah, I stuff here and there's the last thing I want to say that, you know, when the commitments were me made. And there's a, there's a, and there's a, there's a more awareness within the government sectors, especially the office of Prime Minister, however, I haven't seen any mechanism that look after the commitments, and I see there is a need to set up and mechanism that really oversee this process and work with the, you know, relevant ministries and departments, you know, provide them support tools, and also monitor their progress. In terms of these commitments and to really work to fulfill these commitments within the air of action so there is opportunities there are some challenges because this is an election year we are having local election right now. So there's two more elections coming up in a couple of, couple of months. So the priority at the moment for the government is more of election. However, you know, these commitments are also not really huge to fulfill, then it's more government willingness to active civil society and engagement of a lot of young people to promote innovations, informations and engagement at the local and the national level. So I stop here. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Nariam, for these interesting perspectives. What I'm hearing you saying is that the summit for democracy process is an important provides an important leverage for advancing Nepalese democracy and, and it's potential entry into the partnership that he in addressing some of the key challenges that Nepalese democracy is facing but that there is also some room for improvement in terms of making these commitments more specific and engaging civil society more in the in the process, also nurturing the commitments, and then also bringing in the, the, the political the electoral dimension into all this that is going to be the focus this year both locally and nationally, if I understand correctly. I have follow up questions to you to hear more about how to engage civil society in this process but I'll turn to those after I think now we'll move over to hear the perspective from Norway. And we have Harriet bag with us. She's the director of human rights democracy and gender equality in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And she's prior to this role she was Norway's general console in New York and she has worked and represented Norway towards the United Nations. And we would like to hear very much from from you from the perspective of Norway also similar to Canada has developed an ambitious set of commitments both to strengthen democracy domestically but also internationally. If you could tell us a little bit about how Norway sees the summit for democracy process and how this initiative is valued, and what you hope it can contribute both for Norway's democracy agenda as well as for the global democracy agenda over to you Harriet. Thank you, Annika. Thank you for organizing this this meeting it helps us trying to define clear how we can use this process for something that is beneficial for us all. And just to start off by our engagement in the process and what we believe can come out of that. Any discussion on democracy these days is very very welcome. In Europe we certainly realizing how important democratic institution rule of law human rights gender equality is for us these days when we have war ongoing in our neighborhood. And it's important for us to continue to work to strengthen democratic institutions to strengthen any rule of law system in our societies including in Europe when we see the threats from authoritarianism in in our neighborhood. So this is very timely and we've been as you said using it to come with pledges in the first round pledges on how to strengthen democracy how to defend against authoritarianism how to fight corruption and how to promote respect for human rights. As some of you might already know, Norway has been engaged in strengthening civil society and the situation for human rights defenders for a long time, particularly when it comes to the normative development in the UN. But also when it comes to working in improving the situation for human rights defenders and civil society on the ground as we call it by supporting organizations and processes. We believe that human rights defenders play an important very positive and legitimate role in building an inclusive, sustainable and democratic society. And in realizing the 2030 agenda on sustainable development as well. And we seek to strengthen the normative framework by having resolutions in the human rights council in the UN and in other ways, but what we do realize is that the implementation on the ground continues to be your challenge. And something that we try to work on and we see this process as another way to try to work on these processes. We have informed US authorities State Department that we are willing to take on the responsibility of sharing cohort on civil society and particularly on human rights defenders. And we hope that that could be a way to actually improve a situation on the ground, being able to share experiences inspiring for more engagement and more ambitious pledges. Wonderful. This is great news, I think, and not just to us, but everyone listening in to hear that Norway will take a leading role in a cohort on civil society and human rights defenders. I'm sure there will be a lot of interest for engagement in that in that cohort. And as this cohort process is just starting to take shape, knowing which governments are taking the lead, I think it's very, very helpful for everyone listening in. Also important mentioned of linking these efforts to ongoing efforts such as the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, I think it's very important to hear. And hearing the same from you, Harriet, as from Emily, that this summit process, what it does, one of the things that it does is placing democracy at the front and center of the global agenda and of the global discussions and I think that's one of its main contributions. So thank you very much for for these this perspective, and I have more questions for you, but I'll turn to them a little bit later on. And now we'll turn to another country and another perspective now from civil society again from Congo DRC a very different context actually according to international ideas classification is the only authoritarian regime that was invited to the summit process. And we have the young and poco from global integrity, he's co founder of open DRC, which is an organization committed to strengthening the Congolese civil society's ecosystem under the principle of open government to advocate influence and enhance the process for Congo DRC's potential joining of the open government partnership. So, the young question to you. We know that the government of Congo has submitted written commitments as well to strengthen democracy at home. As part of the summit for democracy process from the civil society perspective, how do you view this process. And these commitments, do you think that they will provide an important tool for strengthening democracy in Congo. And in what way, do you think that the commitments are addressing the challenges that Congolese democracy is facing adequately and what would be your views on this. Over to you. Thank you very much. I would like to thank for the the accountability lab and the international idea for having me here. Thank you very much. In my view, the process is an important tools in a way that it opens the window of opportunity for the DRC government to work with the civil society. On the issue related to democracy because in the DRC, like you mentioned, is not a free country. So there is no collaboration between the government and the civil society and use this was really important for that mechanism to be effective. Unfortunately, today is not happening. The government made the commitment by myself, and it trying to work with the US by himself that engaging the civil society. And one of the things that we are trying to do is to push on for the civil society to engage with the government and look at this commitment and try to resolve one by one or to assist the government in applying the commitment as of the commitment. Two of them is very important in a way that we think is a tool that is going to help the DRC in improving the score on all the related issues such as transparency, accountability, and civics participation for which one. One of the commitment that the president mentioned, sweating of a general aspect of finance, national agency to fight against corruption, a court of auditor and criminal. That commitment is very important is a tool important because we think is going to improve the DRC score in eligibility mechanism to join the OGP because as we know DRC is not part of the OGP is not eligible yet. But this commitment, if it works correctly, effectively, it will help the DRC to improve the score, maybe to be eligible to join the OGP. So we saw some kind of improve and progress since 2002, the president funded the general aspect of finance and the aspect of finance himself tried to recruit more aspect. So the increase and they improve their way of the scope of investigation. So they're doing good job on that particular issue. So among the five commitment, all you want commitment that we can say for the moment as progress as activity, all is trying to improve. The other one, we think that they need more help and they need more process. So we are going to follow up to see how we can discuss with the government and improve the issue. Thank you. Thank you so much, Guillaume, for this and interesting to hear, but both in Nepal's and in Congo DRC's process in the Summit for Democracy, you both think that the commitments that the governments have made are if they are being implemented adequately can provide important leverage and support for these countries potentially joining the open government partnership. So that that's very interesting how one global process can provide leverage and support another one like the OGP process. I think we have heard from all the panelists now, various perspectives from government and from civil society and I think what we will do now is to hear some of the questions that we have posed for the panelists in the chat. Everyone listening in, feel free to make questions in the chat to the panelists. We'll start with the first question. Back to you, Emily, you were mentioning at the beginning, how Canada values the Summit for Democracy process, how you think it's been a very important to place democracy at the front and center of the global agenda you also alluded to the importance of not the process not ending with the second summit that is planned for 2023. How does Canada view a potential continuation of the summit process beyond these two summits. That's a very good question. I think the US as lead on the summit process is, is not certain how the summit process should continue whether there, whether there should be annual summits or whether it should become something more back to our regular work making this a priority for all governments without needing to have a summit there behind it. I think the commitments that Canada has taken are are important ones for our government, and it's clear that the work whether you look at you know working with human rights defenders or combating systemic racism against indigenous peoples in Canada. Those will not end in a year or two and it's clear that these commitments that the work on these commitments will continue within the different departments responsible for them. But I think there's also some value at at countries coming together and reminding ourselves of the urgency on this kind of like for climate change we know there's lots to do and we need to discuss it together. What format that takes, I think doesn't matter so much and there are so many coalitions and organizations and forums where these important conversations should continue. We just need to remind ourselves that we need to stay focused on these. So I think there's some decisions to make amongst countries with stakeholders but there's many different ways that that the work could continue. Thank you. Thank you Emily absolutely we hear you on this that even if the summit process ends with the second summit there are many ongoing processes and global initiatives that will continue as well as domestic initiatives that will continue that can continue to build on on the summit process and and as you say, many of the commitments that have been made by government most of them actually will will not be able to be implemented in a year's time. It's too short democracy takes time and many of these reforms are more long term. So also pointing to the need to for civil society and other actors to to continue to to monitor the summit process even and the commitments and the implementation of these commitments after after the second summit will be important. Another question for for Narayan in the in the Nepalese context, you've been mentioning the the the election, the local and national level election process this year that will take place. How do you think that the electoral processes in Nepal will will affect the commitments that have been made to the summit for democracy and whether they will change the priorities that have been made in these commitments. Over to you Narayan. Thank you good question. Actually I mentioned it briefly before. You know, I would imagine I would have I would wish the government could have make a commitment around election because the air of action for a for Nepal is is going to be more relevant because this is going to be our election year. However, in the statement. You know, the Prime Minister's statement to submit for democracy has mentioned a little bit about election. They say that they're going to be they provide free fair. You know, access to information. And then there is going to be a wider consultation with society media and different stakeholders on making electoral process more open fair just going back to your question about how it if how how might it affects, I would say it will affect a lot because at the moment, starting from the local elections to the to the provincial election and federal election in upcoming months, because the priority for the government is definitely going to be election. And the priority for the political parties, neither me as a political parties is is now for elections. This is about, you know, accumulating powers and we have parties that are divided and the parties that are trying to force an alliance targeting for next election. So I would see, I would clearly see that it will procrastinate the summit for democracy agenda. However, some of the agenda commitments might might advance a little bit. But there is a risk that it will take long time, less focus, less consultative, you know, less open to the public civil society. Like, for example, you know, reviewing, you know, on cat might affect as or it might advance but without proper, you know, consultation with civil society and other stakeholders. Thank you so much and I am for for hearing this perspective. I think some of the criticisms of the summit for democracy process that have been raised are that it's, it's, it's, it's a US initiative, and that it's not necessarily domestically owned in countries how would you view this you are a civil society representative in Nepal but you're voicing strong support for the summit process and thinking that it can actually contribute to strengthen democracy locally in Nepal and provide leverage for civil society organizations and others that care about democracy in Nepal how would you view this. I was asking the question I had I had thought about it before and I mentioned this thing. A lot with some of the US officials, the senior officials, you know we're visiting in Nepal. You know, the summit for democracy is, you know, initiated by the US common is a great thing. I like this and this is very important. As it, you know, as it help us to leverage, you know, from what we are in terms of advancing our democracy. These are great steps, and thanks to US common as it provides civil society or tools for advocacy. However, however, you know, I'm a, I'm a great fan of internationalization and, you know, to really something really something like open government partnership. In other nations that are more international intergovernmental would be more, I think easy, more, you know, it will create more ownership among government stakeholders in society and international communities that it view as a commitments that Nepal is part of international framework, necessarily always view just like this. This is kind of like, you know, bilateral or one country leading this. And of course we have people who have a political inclination inclination towards certain countries. So this also, there is a risk that, you know, you know, why just America is, is taking the, you know, is raising this use, raising this issues in the name of democracy. Why not this international institution like open government partnership, and all of course they are raising but there is, there is a large number of population here in Nepal. They still view that this is a agenda, you know, you know, pushing from the United States to Nepal, not necessarily a domestic agenda, but I don't see that. However, there is a risk and that's why I really urge the Nepal government to opt for open government partnership and the US government to work with Nepal. You know, to create an enabling environment, you know, promote motivations and incentives to really become a member of the OGP and provide Nepal government enough support to fulfill this OGP commitment. And these all in all these commitments that are mentioned in the open, you know, Summit for Democracy and the future commitments would be from the commitment from the open government partnership commitment. So that way it will be easier, one sort of one door policy. And for government, sometimes it's hard for us to advocate is that there's so much of international things are coming up. And where we looked at, how we looked at, do we have capacity? Do we have willingness? Do we have a mechanism to support? So somehow it is also creating confusions that what should we follow Summit for Democracy, open government partnership, or there are other international mechanisms. So this is what I want to say. Yeah, thank you. This is really interesting that there is, even though the process is important and is valuable and you view it as valuable, even though that may not necessarily be shared by everyone in Nepal. And there is also proliferation, a risk of proliferation of international initiatives that create that risk creating confusion. So, I'm hearing you that it, the recommendation is really to try to, to focus these, the Summit for Democracy commitments and the process, to bring them towards the open government, an open government action plan in Nepal becoming a member of the open government partnership. And then that way sort of localizing the agenda and creating more domestic ownership for it, also in the long term. Just in like 10 second, like what you said that when you move a laptop crashed, you use mobile phone as an alternative means. So there's open, I mean, Summit for Democracy, I see is a great alternative way to advance our democracy and push for other stuff like open government partnership. So we need alternatives to advance our democracy. And the Summit for Democracy is something like that. Very good. No, thank you very much. And we have a question here in this chat we're coming towards the end of our conversation but we have a question also for Harriet and Norway. People are very happy to hear that Norway will be co-leading a cohort on civil society and human rights defenders. I'm just asking if there are any more details on the creation of the cohort, including a time frame from when it will begin. Which organization or organizations, maybe civil society co-lead possible other interest from other governments and any possible focus of the cohort. Harriet, over to you. Yeah, they're all good questions. We certainly asked everybody in an early phase and contemplating which issues we would like to concentrate on. I think that to be able to really have an impact and to really be able to have good exchanges or experience and then good practices and possible commitments at the next Summit, we need to narrow it down. So we will have to think about which issues that we would like to focus more on. Our main idea is that we want to use this as an opportunity and a bit like Mariana has described as well, use this as a vehicle to move a process forward. And for us that is the process leading up to the declaration of human rights defenders in the UN. It has its 25th anniversary in the fall of 2023. And we believe that to be able to think about how we can fill that with even more engagement and ambition is something that we can use the process that your action for. So to be more concrete, we want to have a cohort with countries from all regions. And we are now looking at who we should invite and have a discussion with in that regard, but they think it's important to have a cross-regional core group where at least five states come together to chair this together. And then we want to of course have a strong dialogue and the partnership with civil society. Then the issue is of course that yes we can be on digital meetings but still somehow we need to make sure that we have a representative group of civil society organizations, but not overwhelming ourselves totally. So we are looking for umbrella organizations and we are in dialogue with some that can kind of represent more than one organization into this. So that's also why we thought this meeting was very interesting. And then we hope that we kind of with this have created some kind of first movers coalition that can get us a bit forward when it comes to what are the issues we should focus on in the future. And then hopefully have a very nice energetic and good warming up for our 25th anniversary for the declaration for your morass offenders in fall in one and a half years. Wonderful. No, this is this is great. I read. I think this announcement creates a lot of enthusiasm for everyone that is listening in and that are tuned into the summit process. Also, very good to hear that there will be core group of several countries that will co-lead this together with you and maybe an umbrella organization from civil society that can have ample coverage. So we look forward to hearing more on this cohort. And as you say early movers have an advantage so you'll have a lot of attention I think into this cohort and we look forward to hearing everything that the cohort is achieving and two more discussions to share progress going forward. We are coming to the end of our session I wanted to have an opportunity, given the opportunity to blank blank course from executive director of accountability lab to say a few words on what he's been hearing from this discussion and to help us wrap up the session. Blair, are you there. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks. Everybody. This is a fascinating discussion so many important points. I think and I know where we're running out of time briefly but just to touch on a couple and I think the overall feeling I get from the conversation and having been involved in in a number of these kinds of conversations around the bit of oxy is that that it remains a really important opportunity. This, this is a an important political initiative. It is a framework that can help push these issues along from whichever perspective we are viewing them. And, and there are entry points that we can capitalize on. I think from a from a government perspective it's great of course to have our colleagues here from Canada and Norway and to hear some of the high level engagements that now seems to be happening around this and of course that I think is is key if this can become a priority, and, and governments can can garner the political will that's needed to deliver on this. That is essential that is more difficult in some countries of course then than others. I think there's a great point about aligning this with with other incentives with other mechanisms with other processes that that are ongoing like GP of course which has been mentioned a number of times. I completely agree but that there are others as we've also touched on, but also having a whole of government approach which again is easier in some countries than than others but but Canada touched on that aligning different different government agencies and that can lead to to efforts to to support these sorts of things rather than duplicate or work in parallel from a from a civil society perspective. I think it sounds like there's more to do in terms of awareness. The om touched on on that. We in our community here are talking about these things I think there's a lot more to do to to broaden the reach with civil society to bring citizens at all levels to these discussions and to make sure that their voices are heard and to make sure that commitments reflect what it is that citizens and civil society wants, of course. And for as we've discussed that the commitments to be clear. Many countries have not made clear commitments that makes accountability very difficult. And and I would suggest as we're trying to do with accountability that in those countries where commitments are not clear with that we that we use this as an opportunity to push for what would make them clear if if a government is making a vague statement about something let's let's talk together and see how we can make that concrete and provide specific steps that that government and others can can use to push this agenda forward and support democracy more more broadly. Let me, let me end there but just with a final point which which I think is something that OGP has also learned which is the value of learning for this of course this is the first time this is this is happening. The cohorts and the sort of issues that you talked about director Berg in terms of learning across countries and really trying to bring into the society into into the cohorts in the right sorts of ways are critical if we can use this to learn and then not only the year of action but all of our efforts after the year of action and some of it for democracy will be so much more effective. Thank you. Thank you so much Blair for these wise insights. I think we all agree with what you said that particularly the last thing this is, this is a learning process, and we need to all be humble in this learning process and and gather the lessons learned so that we can improve going further whether with whether it's in the summit for democracy process or other processes that will continue after. What we've been hearing from all the panelists is the importance of this space of this initiative, taken by the US government to put democracy at the front and center of the global agenda, really to provide visibility for the, for these issues. So we'll have a responsibility whether we're in government or in civil society or in into governmental organizations to play our part in ensuring this process success. And I think now and you were you were alluding to also the, that the, for example in Nepal that there wasn't a process for following up on the commitments I think if the process doesn't exist and if it's not built into the public I think we can also think about how civil society and other stakeholders can create such processes to to monitor the commitments that have been made and ensure their effective implementation. I would have wanted to give the floor to all the panelists to finish but I'm also want to be respectful of everyone's time. We're at 10am here in Washington DC so we're going to have to wrap up the session but we just wanted to thank you all so much for participating in this discussion to the panelists for giving their perspectives to the audience for the questions asked. We're hoping that this is just one of many conversations on the summit for democracy process where we can share perspectives I think that the beauty of this conversation, really what I'm taking away. And I think it represents the space of the summit processes, it brings together stakeholders from very different context from newer and older democracies and the global south and the north that have different levels of democratic maturity but we all have something in common and it's the concern for protecting democracy and many of these challenges that democracy is facing they're similar in older and newer democracy so we have points in common in a way that maybe wouldn't have in the past. So, thank you for providing this valuable space for your perspectives for the panelists for engaging today, and we look forward to many more conversations of this kind going forward. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Bye bye. Thank you have a great day. Bye.