Hundreds of Democracy activists will convene February 1-4, 2004 in Durban
World Movement for Democracy to Meet in Durban
Hundreds of Democracy Activists Will Convene February 1-4, 2004
Rainer Erkens, FNF Regional Director Africa, will attend the forthcoming meeting of the World Movement for Democracy as representative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation which will convene on February 1-4, 2004 in Durban, South Africa, for its Third Assembly.
“Building Democracy for Peace, Development and Human Rights,” is the
theme of the Assembly, which will take place at the International Convention
Centre in Durban. More than 600 democracy activists, practitioners, and
scholars from more than 100 countries in every region of the world,
including Belarus, Burma, China, Colombia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Iraq, Liberia, Mongolia, Serbia and Venezuela will discuss practical
solutions to a wide range of challenges.
In more than 40 workshops, participants will explore how to expand and
strengthen democracy in their countries and in their regions of the world;
how to strengthen civic groups, political parties and the media; how to
increase accountability of political institutions; and how to use civic
education and culture as a means of promoting democratic values. Other areas
of discussion include increasing women’s participation, the challenges of
working in conflict-ridden societies, transitional justice, among others.
Three South African partner organizations—the African Centre for the
Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD, www.accord.org.za), the Centre
for Policy Studies (CPS, www.cps.org.za), and the Institute for Democracy in
South Africa (IDASA, www.idasa.org.za)—are working with the World Movement
Secretariat to organize the Assembly.
A highlight of the event will be the presentation of the World Movement’s
Democracy Courage Tributes at the John B. Hurford Memorial Dinner on
February 4. Recipients will be: the Democracy Movement in Sudan; the Mano
River Union Civil Society Movement; the Democracy Movement in Belarus; and
two groups working for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, the
Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) and the
Panorama Center.
Initiated in 1999 to “strengthen democracy where it is weak, to reform and
invigorate democracy even where it is longstanding, and to bolster
pro-democracy groups in countries that have not yet entered into a process
of democratic transition," the World Movement is a global network that meets
periodically to exchange ideas and experiences and uses new information and
communication technologies to foster collaboration among democratic forces
around the world. The World Movement is governed by a distinguished
international Steering Committee, and the Washington, DC-based National
Endowment for Democracy (NED) currently serves as its Secretariat.
World Movement for Democracy
CONTACTS:
Jean Freedberg :
jfreedberg@ndi.org, Tel: 084-444-0094
Jane Riley Jacobsen: jane@ned.org;
Tel: +1 084-444-0493
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