The State of Democracy Conference
The Conference will take place on 25-26 April 2005. The Follow-up to the Fifth ICNRD Project will provide the financing for the Organization of the Conference.
The State of Democracy Conference Objectives
The State of Democracy Conference shall have the following objectives:
* To bring together representatives of Mongolia’s Government, Parliament, and civil society to discuss the democracy process in the country and strategize over its most urgent conflicts and problems;
* To assess the current state of Mongolia’s democracy through public discussion of background papers, panel statements and interventions on the floor by participants to the Conference;
* To identify key challenges to Mongolia’s democracy on the basis of the above assessment and the comparative analysis of the democracy experience of new or restored democracies and mature democracies;
* To identify priority areas for democracy consolidation and discuss and determine solutions to the key challenges identified;
* To discuss and amend if necessary the draft NPA to be presented at the Conference by the Project funded Research Group specifying practical steps and activities to consolidate democracy in Mongolia;
* To incorporate recommendations formulated and supported by the Conference participants in the draft NPA;
* To adopt the NPA and recommend it for passage by the Parliament or the Government of Mongolia;
* To appoint an Advocacy Group with a three tier-structure to engage in public advocacy activities in the post-Conference period;
* To hold a Friends of the Chair meeting within the framework of the Conference to discuss the post-ICNRD-5 activities and lay out the prospects for 2005-2006 actions;
* To pilot the implementation of the ICNRD-5 recommendations at the national level in Mongolia and initiate an international experience-sharing process in and outside the ICNRD movement.
Participants in the State of Democracy Conference
The State of Democracy Conference is expected to be all-inclusive and bring together all national stakeholders in the spirit of the ICNRD-5. The participants to the State of Democracy Conference shall include representatives of the Government, the Parliament, officially registered political parties, self-governing civil society organizations (business, media, women and youth organizations, arts and culture, other sectors), and prominent citizens. The Conference will be attended by three-tiered delegations from all aimags. The latter delegations will also include media representatives from aimags.
The Conference will be attended by foreign delegations representing ICNRD-5 regional focal points and the Friends of the Chair composition.
The total number of participants will approximate 300 persons.
Structure of the State of Democracy Conference
The State of Democracy Conference will have a two-day format with two plenary sessions and two subsessions for discussions by four working groups.
The opening plenary session (the first half of the first day) will hear an introductory statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Chair of the ICNRD-5) specifying the nature and the objectives of the Conference, followed by a statement on the current challenges facing Mongolia’s democracy by the President of Mongolia. Then, the plenary session will hear a report on the draft National Plan of Action to consolidate democracy in Mongolia prepared by the Research Group and presented by the Research Group Coordinator. The report will be followed by two reports on major specific democracy challenges prepared and presented by a Mongolian political scientist and a foreign expert specializing on democratic transition problems with exposure to Mongolia’s history and politics. This plenary session will hear representatives of the Friends of the Chair and the Follow-up Mechanism on the national, regional and global activities in the wake of the ICNRD-5.
The Conference is expected to have four working groups that will convene in two subsessions each (the second half of the first day and the first half of the second day) to discuss and strategize over the four subthemes of the Conference. There will be the following subthemes:
* The role of political parties in consolidating democracy in Mongolia or how to reinvent program-based parties.
* Political corruption and its effects on democratic governance and economic development.
* The electoral system, the electoral process, and the electoral reform: their effects on democracy consolidation.
* Mongolia’s civil society: its role in creating transparent and accountable governance.
The subthemes of the Conference will reflect the general structure of the draft NPA and thus facilitate the discussion and the emergence of a consensus on the draft NPA. The subsessions will hear reports on respective subthemes, panel discussions and then floor discussions. The subsessions will be used by the Research Group to explain the respective sections in the draft NPA and also introduce corrections and recommendations to the draft NPA text.
The closing plenary session (the second half of the second day) will hear reports by coordinators of the working groups, the report on the discussion of the draft NPA by the Research Group Coordinator, and will select members of the Advocacy Group for post-Conference activities. A representative of the Friends of the Chair will address the session with his/her observations and conclusions regarding the outcomes of the Conference. The closing statement will be made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and include statements on the adoption of the NPA, the outcomes of the Conference and their significance for Mongolia and the ICNRD regional and global activities, and the strategy for post-Conference advocacy activities.
The Friends of the Chair meeting will be held during the second half of the first day of the Conference. The meeting will hear a statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the ICNRD-5 follow-up activities and 2005-2006 actions followed by statements of the Friends of the Chair delegations and other country delegations – regional focal points. The country delegations will be received by Mongolia’s state dignitaries during the first half of the second day of the Conference.
Read also: The State of E Cigarette Cartridges! The latest innovation in smoking – now av available in Mongolia too!