EGF Task Force
The Civil Society Task Force - Overview

Esquel Group Foundation (EGF) currently coordinates the Civil Society Task Force. Started in 1994, the Task Force has become a clearing house and a forum for debate on issues relative to the advancement of active citizen participation in the Americas, especially within the framework of the Hemispheric Summit process, which emphasizes a sustainable and inclusive development process. Participants span across a wide range of organizations and affiliations, including representatives from US and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government agencies, multilateral institutions, foundations, academia, the media, and private for-profit organizations. The participant database has now surpassed 400 names, and an average number of 40-45 participants are present at each meeting. The meetings have been highly successful—“the best briefing in town” according to one participant—as a vehicle to coordinate civil society action on the Miami Summit Process (1994), monitoring follow-up from the Hemispheric Summit for Sustainable Development in Santa Cruz, Bolivia (December 1996) and the Summit of the Americas in Santiago de Chile (April 1998) and the Canadian Summit in2001 in Quebec City [for more information on the Summit of the Americas visit: www.summit-americas.org] . The Task Force continues to work with key persons in the Summit of the Americas process to advance civil society participation. These include: members of the “Troika,” the Permanent Representative of the United States to the OAS who is also Senior Summit Coordinator; the Mission’s Senior Political Advisor; the Summit Coordinator at the US State Department; the Permanent Representative of Canada to the OAS; the Summit Coordinator at the Canadian Mission; the Representative to the Permanent Mission of Chile to the OAS and several members of his staff; the Director of the Office of Summit Follow-up at the Organization of American States; and the Permanent Representative of the Dominican Republic to the OAS and co-coordinator of the Civil Society Initiative of the Summit.

EGF also is focusing on strengthening the Civil Society Task Force’s relationship with Corporación Participa (Chile) and FOCAL (the Canadian Foundation for Latin America) with regards to fostering a more coordinated approach to civil society participation for Summit follow-up and particularly after the Canadian Summit in 2001. Formalized collaboration with these two organizations—both of them already involved in consultations of civil society in the Summit Process within their own countries—occurred through a consortium with three main objectives:
(1) Increase awareness about the Summit Process within the Governmental and Non-Governmental sectors of the countries of the region;
(2) Promote constructive dialogue and collaboration between governmental and non-governmental sectors in each country, and within the latter, to foster implementation of Summit Mandates; and
(3) Promote information exchange between civil society, governments and Summit officials at the hemispheric level to advance effective participation of civil society in the Summit Process. This culminated at a conference in Miami in January 2001 to report on the national civil society consultations and draft jointly with government officials a summary document that was presented to the Summit process. Esquel is now collaborating with PARTICIPA in what will become a hemisphere-wide civil society effort to work with governments in following up the implementation of the 1991 Quebec City accords.

In addition to the Summit, Task Force activities generate important opportunities for civil society participation on other specific issues/instances at the regional level. By addressing broader topics related to the strengthening of civil society in the region, the Task Force creates a critical mass of individuals interested in tackling particular subjects. A new mechanism of specifically targeted working groups is proving particularly effective at taking advantage of those opportunities:

(a) The NGO Working Group on the OAS was created in November 1998 to advise several missions regarding the reform of the organization, particularly regarding its relationship to civil society. In this context, it has focused its recent efforts on an NGO accreditation system within the OAS. The Working Group has submitted comments on successive drafts of that resolution, which was approved by the General Assembly in June 1999. The group has continued to work with partners within the OAS as specific guidelines for participation are developed.

(b) Task Force participants monitors the Free Trade Area of the Americas’ (FTAA) Government Committee on Civil Society (GCCS), charged with devising procedures to promote discussions with civil society. A working group of concerned organizations from across the region was convened by EGF to engage in constructive dialogue with FTAA negotiators.

(c) EGF was asked to chair a Working Group on Financing Participation in Development, which will have the following objective:
“To review and analyze options for financing public participation in development decision-making and to develop a consensus set of recommendations (including strategic considerations, best practices and innovative solutions) for consideration by governments, donors, development banks and agencies, and other interested organizations and individuals.

(d) Although not formally constituted as a Working Group, Task Force participants wereactively engaged in the definition of the Inter-American Strategy for Citizen Participation (ISP), a program of the OAS to promote transparent, effective and responsible public participation in sustainable development policies in the Americas. The Task Force coordinator as well as several regular participants sat in the ISP advisory committee and ISP updates were presented frequently at Task Force Meetings. The Working Groups reported to the Task Force on a regular basis about their activities and new groups are formed upon the request of participants.

(e) The Task Force has also offered a space for information on the efforts within international development assistance organizations to incorporate the role of citizens in their programs as well as within their own internal structures. As such the Task force has frequently hosted presentations by the European Commission, the Organization of American States, the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank.

Meanwhile the Task Force continues to contribute to the establishment of an effective civil society participation mechanism beyond Canada 2001. This has included: (i) continued collaboration with the co-coordinators of the Summit’s Civil Society Initiative, the OAS Office of Summit Follow-up and the Summit Coordinators of Canada, Chile and the United States; (ii) promotion of enabling language and concrete recommendations for the effective implementation and advancement of the Civil Society Initiative; (iii) coordination with Participa in Chile and FOCAL in Canada as lead NGOs in the transition between the Chile and Canada Summits and beyond the Canada Summit; and (iv) information exchange and coordination with US-based and Latin American civil society organizations in the Canadian Summit Process. In this context, the Task Force continued to respond to participants’ demands through the coordination of existing and possibly new working groups. In addition, it continued to explore the advantages of encouraging forums similar to the Task Force on a pilot basis in one or more Latin American/Caribbean countries in co-ordination with the Inter American Democracy Network. In this regard the Task Force has co-sponsored several teleconferenced sessions with the Inter American Democracy Network, has inspired a similar “Roundtable for a Culture of Transparency” in the Dominican Republic and is presently contemplating a similar effort in Guatemala or Honduras.

Since late 2000 the Task Force has conducted a series of presentations by distinguished experts on the general topic of the construction of social capital as a pre-requisite to economic and social progress. Presentations have focused on the roles of non-governmental actors in promoting –or hindering- such construction (Lester Salamon, Johns Hopkins University and David Crocker, University of Maryland), on the role of foreign assistance in this respect and the modifications that might be made to it (Thomas Carrothers, Carnegie Endowment), the role of civic values and culture in fostering such interconnections (Lawrence Harrison, Harvard University), the construction of social capital within community development efforts in the US (David Moore, The Harwood Institute and Andrea Anderson, The Aspen Institute), the theoretical underpinnings of the various kinds of social capital (Michael Woolcock, Cambridge University) and the empirical measurement of social capital (Deepa Narayan and Christian Grootaert, World Bank).

The Task Force is under the coordination of Ramon E. Daubon who, in addition to his role at the Civil Society Task Force, is an Associate of the Kettering Foundation in Washington DC. He is also Advisor to the Inter American Democracy Network, the Inter American Foundation, the Canadian Foundation for Latin America and the Georgetown University Caribbean Studies Group. A native of Puerto Rico he holds a PhD in Economic Development from the University of Pittsburgh. He has written extensively on the relationship between democracy and development, with particular focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.