|
Launch of the Partnership for Democratic Governance
Statement by Alejandro Foxley Riosecos, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile
New York, 1 October 2007
Mr. President,
I would like to welcome and to give our full support to the Partnership for Democratic Governance initiative. We fully support it and are happy to be one of the founding members. The countries participating share the common goal of helping to develop and improve the governance in emerging democracies.
The principles and objectives of the Partnership fully coincide with the importance our foreign policy attaches to cooperation for the strengthening of democratic institutions. They are also consistent with our participation in bodies such as the Peacebuilding Commission and other fora for promoting and assisting democratic governance, at the global and regional level.
The experience of post-conflict societies shows that inadequate government capacity can become a major obstacle in the formulation and implementation of socio-economic policies and the delivery of basic social services in order to improve the population’s living conditions. This initiative will help bridge this gap, in a spirit of solidarity and collaboration.
We view this initiative as a complement to the action that each recipient country must take to improve its own democracy. This effort involves local capacity-building for adequate provision of the essential public services, as well as strengthening the capacity of citizens to demand from their leaders a response to their basic need for political stability, transparency and economic security.
We are very glad to be part of this initiative, among other things because it gives us the opportunity to further develop our policy of South-South cooperation. We hope to play a role with special emphasis on the promotion of democratic societies that emphasizes equity and social inclusion as a primary goal.
We believe that Chile’s experience, successes and failures, with policies on modernization of public administration and programmes in the economic and social area, can be useful to other societies facing similar challenges.
When one thinks about improving democratic governance, one may think about how to improve the social services’ network; how to deal with the problem of violence; how to deal with the issue of family structures; or how to improve education and enhance fiscal transparency, among other aspects. The Partnership could be useful to undertake actions in many of these fields.
It is our opinion that the involvement of UNDP and OECD in the development and implementation of this initiative is important, because of the experience acquired by these institutions in policy formulation and technical cooperation in the area of democratic governance.
In our view, it is important for this initiative to be very concrete and down-to- earth in nature and to respond to the requirements of the countries concerned, be demand driven, with a pragmatic approach and a focus on their needs.
It is appropriate that this initiative has been launched at the United Nations. It recognizes the importance that the promotion of democracy has acquired as one of the Organization’s central goals, together with sustainable development, human rights and world security.
Chile is confident that the Partnership for Democratic Governance will open up new prospects for cooperation and solidarity with the peoples of developing countries, which need democratic institutions in order to secure a dignified future in freedom.
|
