Social Development and Public Governance > Social Development > Social Policy Dialogue
Citizens to the Fore
by Christina MacCulloch
When close to 1,500 civilian volunteers, many of them adolescents and retirees, showed up at voting booths throughout the Dominican Republic during presidential elections last year, people took notice.
The volunteers were members of Participación Ciudadana, a civil society organization (CSO) that trains people to monitor elections. Their show of force was a testament to the growing ability of such organizations in the Dominican Republic to play significant roles in resolving a wide range of social and political problems.
How can the energy and initiative of the country's CSOs be harnessed to play an even greater role in their society? This was the subject of an IDB-sponsored meeting held in Santo Domingo last September and attended by some 100 representatives of CSOs, the Dominican government and the private sector.
The meeting's goal was to identify and improve mechanisms by which CSOs can influence the management and execution of development projects in the country. Participants also discussed ways of raising public awareness of how CSOs can help to ensure the efficacy, efficiency and sustainability of development efforts.
?People participate when they perceive that the conditions are in place for a truly effective participation,? said Jorge Cela, a Jesuit priest who directs the Centro de Estudios Sociales Juan Montalvo.
The volunteers organized by Participación Ciudadana are a case in point. Thirty percent of them had never belonged to any kind of organization, according José Ceballos, general coordinator of Participación Ciudadana. They volunteered to serve as election observers because they believed that their efforts would have a tangible and immediate impact on the quality of political life in the country.
Meeting participants also examined the experience of PROCOMUNIDAD a social investment fund supported by the IDB, and Ciudad Alternativa, an advocacy group for dwellers of poor neighborhoods on the margins of Santo Domingo. Debates centered on how groups such as these can form alliances among themselves, political parties and the government in order to build the consensus necessary to push through meaningful changes.
The meeting was the third in a series through which the IDB seeks to encourage the participation of civil society organizations in the projects it finances. The first two meetings were held in Colombia and Guatemala in 1996.
Last updated: 01/16/07
