Non-Governmental Process, held March 3-4, 2005

The next ministerial meeting of the Community of Democracies was held in Santiago, Chile on April 28-29, 2005. In an effort to ensure effective civil society participation, the Executive Secretariat (currently hosted by Corporación PARTICIPA, a Chilean NGO) developed a strategy in advance of the ministerial meeting. This strategy that worked on global, regional, and national levels and brought together civil society representatives as part of the Non-Governmental deliberative process to discuss the major democratic deficits in each region of the world and develop proposals for how governments should address those deficits.

The main objectives of the Non-Governmental process were:

•	To organize and develop a participatory process for the social and political actors of Santiago 2005, to promote the creation of a non-governmental counterpart of the Community of Democracies;
•	To provide governments, international, and regional organizations, civil society, and the donor community with a high-level analysis of both democratic deficits and also proposals for how to address them.
•	To advocate for and raise global awareness of the importance of developing effective and comprehensive democracy promotion instruments, especially taking into consideration the present world context.

The official website of the 2005 Non-Governmental Process of the Community of Democracies is: www.santiago2005.org.

Click here for more information regarding the activities related to the NGO Process.

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Third Ministerial Meeting, April 28–29, 2005

The 3rd Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies took place in Santiago, Chile April 28–29, 2005. During the meeting, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and their delegates from more than one hundred countries participated in working groups and regional workshops on issues regarding civil society, inter-regional cooperation for democratic governance, poverty and development, the UN Democracy Caucus and responding to threats to democracy. This multilateral initiative had as its main objective the extension and strengthening of activities for the promotion of democracy at the regional and global level.

The Community of Democracies has a managing and coordinating board named the Convening Group (CG) currently composed of ten countries (Chile, the Czech Republic, India, Mali, Portugal, Poland, Korea, United States, Mexico, and South Africa). Its mission is, among other things, to define the agenda of the Ministerial Conferences; to decide on the criteria for inviting a participant to the CD; to adopt initiatives for the promotion and consolidation of democracy; and to resolve procedural and administrative matters. The representative of the organizing country of the respective Ministerial Conference presides as the chairperson of the CG. The official website of the 2005 Community of Democracies Ministerial is: www.cdemo.cl.

Click here for more information regarding the activities related to the CD Ministerial.

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