For the Advancement of Civil Society in CARICOM Member States

CARICOM MEMBER STATES Antigua Barbados The Bahamas Belize Grenada Dominica Guyana Montserrat Jamaica St Kitts / Nevis St Lucia St Vincent Suriname Trinidad Haiti

Group photo of Heads of CARICOM States with delegates from Civil Society Organisations.

LINKS

"Forward Together" was the theme of the Conference for Civil Society and subsequent Encounter with the Heads of CARICOM States, which was held in Guyana 2-3 July 2002. This Conference demonstrated the urgency with which CARICOM Civil Society Organisations must establish Focal Points in order to open access to Civil Society. This Web Site is therefore, dedicated to the advancement of this cause.

Civil Society Conference Directory of CSOs BANGO Establishing Focal Points Portfolios of CARICOM Heads Flags of CARICOM CARICOM Islands The Liliendaal Statement of Principles Caribbean Policy Development Centre

Civil Society may be defined as: "All those organisations which are not government controlled and which represent Sectors, Communities and Individuals".

NEWS

Jamaica - Women's Manifesto

CSME - CARICOM Single Market & Economy

ISSUES:

Proposed Model of Civil Society Introduction With the political will of the governments of CARICOM to create a CSME and to develop a more democratic system of government, which encourages the full participation of its citizens, Civil Society should be structured to interface with each of the CARICOM Governments, in such a way as to maintain a working relationship with the Governments. If we are seriously contemplating organizing Civil Society so as to maximise the participation of this body of people, then mechanisms must be employed to extract the results of this total participation and properly place them in the mainstream of the national and regional decision making process. Who or What is Civil Society? Civil organisations are captive groupings of people who are concerned with the plight of humanity in one way or the other. To understand the model, we will need to pause and consider what Civil organisations represent in the outlook of the total social and political landscape and who are the members. First, it would not be hard to conclude that these organisations represent a response to social ills, which are not being addressed by government or the rest of the society. Hence, when ordinary citizens get together to form Civil organisations, they represent people of like-minds, who have either experienced or have knowledge of social ills, which they are seeking to address. The fact that people get together also suggests that these are people who feel strongly enough about these particular social ills that they are prepared to seek social justice to address or eliminate them. For any Government, the existence of Civil organisations is a plus because they identify those persons who are willing to get up and do something about their society. Further, They identify those people who have a working knowledge of the problem and who have the experience of searching for solutions to these problems. Hence at the level of the civil organisation there is a pool of persons with knowledge and expertise on the entire spectrum of social ills, which is of importance to the good governance of any country. Whether or not the political directorate recognizes this fact and is prepared to use this expertise is a different matter. In our case we are being led to believe that our Governments want to draw on this pool of expertise and knowledge in order to effect good civil governance. We therefore, would recommend that the leaders of Civil Society seize the opportunity to organize and so establish a Civil Society movement, that it becomes second nature. The Boundaries of Civil Society It happens that this pool is wide and varied in interests but there are those who will fall outside the membership of Civil Society. As stated earlier, Civil Society represents the people who show interest and who have knowledge and expertise on particular subject matter. It also identifies those involved in developmental projects. What we should try to achieve is citizens’ access to the Chamber through membership of Civil Society organisations. Our membership must therefore be credible and our actions must be accountable at all times. In seeking to establish this new structure credibility is the key. Our concern is for humanity. To try to ensure that social justice is delivered in the sense that we as Civil Society are working towards a better quality of life for our fellow man. We should not ever lose sight of this objective and we must be careful not to be infiltrated by people who have their own agendas. Existing organisations will most likely make up the founder membership of the Civil Society Chamber and we should strive to maintain the good standards, which we have developed. Let us not fool ourselves that we have a permanent visa into parliament which cannot be revoked, or that we have suddenly become the voice of the people. We need to see ourselves for who we are and what we stand for and represent that position in the Chamber. The Chamber should represent a genuine effort to come to terms with social problems and assist governments or be assisted by governments with pursuing solutions to social and economic problems. In the same way that Civil Society organisations in the main steer clear of partisan politics, so should the Chambers if it is to maintain its good reputation. We must be clear that we are not setting up a bandwagon for people to jump on and use as a political football. This is not tolerated now and it should remain that way. We should be mindful that in representing causes, it is the duty of any Representative of Civil Society not to bring discredit to any causes they are fighting on behalf of their members. Method of collaboration Structuring Civil Society, to interact with Government, can be characterised as an exercise in both social and political engineering. Our immediate objective can be achieved by two tasks. First is the task of organising Civil Society and, second, we have the task of the mainstreaming of Civil Society into the political framework. Under this model, institutionalization refers to the structuring of Civil Society in a systematic way, to interact Civil Society positions with the national and regional Decision Making process. This may be accomplished by establishing Civil Society Chambers as focal points in each territory, which will serve to coordinate and bring together Civil Society organisations. These Chambers should be linked to each other and should communicate their positions to each other. In the same manner that the CARICOM heads meet, it is imperative that delegations from each Chamber meet to come up with regional positions. The Chambers should be created to encourage total dialogue within the Civil Society Sector that will inform national decisions as well as regional ones. If we are speaking of going “Forward Together”, then the task of Civil Society will demand micro and macro monitoring of all the active sectors of Civil Society. The idea of monitoring is to feed information to Government based on the performance of the sectors and identify obstacles in their way. This information has a twofold purpose in that it will also inform Government of the possible ways it can work with Civil Society to achieve national goals. It is also important that the development of Civil Society adhere to the principle of democratic participation at all the stages. While many groups did not previously see the need to establish umbrella organisations, the creation of the Chambers would encourage groups to organize themselves into umbrella organisations so as to be represented as sectors in the Chamber. The size of the Chamber would therefore be determined by the rationalization of organisations into sectors. The Composition of the Chambers Each Chamber should therefore establish Monitors that reflect the subject matter of the sectors. For example, NOW, as the umbrella for Gender, could be the monitor for Gender. NOW would be responsible for gathering all the issues by initiating dialogue with the groups under its umbrella and making sure that the agreed issues get on the agenda of the Chamber. Similarly, the Council for the Disabled, The Private Sector Agency, Labour, Youth, the NGOs and the CBOs, etc., etc. will all be representing the interest of their members similarly in the Chamber. We need to be careful to reiterate here that the Chamber should not entertain matters of speculation or bias. Certainly Civil Society should not commit itself to unsound matters or practices. Neither should Civil Society try to represent any boundaries outside of its constituency. It must be clear that the Chamber is representing its membership and nothing else. The composition of the Chamber should therefore represent the membership of Civil Society Organisations. It should determine its own rules just as any organisation and screen it members. The legitimacy of the Chamber resides in the mass membership of Civil Society organisations and their support of the positions adopted in the Chamber. This is part of the dynamics of maintaining the Chambers’ usefulness to the Government in achieving good governance. Monitors In the same way that Parliament functions by way of Cabinet, so should Civil Society function with a team of Monitors but their function will more encompass a Collective Duty (rather than collective responsibility) to represent Civil Society, which we may call Collective Representation. Monitors should maintain an interest in the subject matter of their portfolios. They would be expected to represent their sector, guide the process of framing resolutions and make presentations to the Chamber on the issues, which they are mandated to monitor. The presentations should take the format of seeking to establish Civil Society positions on issues. The model does not intend for the system of Monitors to mimic actual Cabinet Ministries but should be decided based on covering all interests with which Civil Society is concerned. For example, in Barbados where there is a Ministry of Education, Sports & Youth Affairs, Civil Society would have a Monitor for each area. On the other hand, a monitor for the Private Sector will find itself interacting with such Ministries as Trade, Tourism and Agriculture extensively, because all these interest groups are under the umbrella of the Private Sector Agency. Each Monitor will be responsible for maintaining a sub committee of the heads of the member organisations that they represent. It is out of the workings of these sub committees that Monitors will bring resolutions to the Chamber. The sub-committees should first pass resolutions brought to the Chamber. The Monitor as the Chairman of the Sub-committee should represent the decisions of the Sub-committee in the Chamber. So that when we look at the proposed structure of the process within Civil Society, we find that dialogue starts at the level of the groups and organisations making decisions by a democratic process. These decisions then move up to the next level where the executives of the umbrella groups get together and come to some consensus on the issues expressed by their members. The Consensus should be fed back to organisations for ratification before going to the Chamber. Finally, at the level of the Chamber these decisions, arrived at through democratic processes, would be resolved into Civil Society positions. This three-tier approach will also serve to fine tune resolutions as they move through the stages. In this model, a resolution can always be sent back to the previous level for clarity or other amendment. This model therefore, offers the widest possible participation by the citizens of each country. It should allow access by the most ordinary citizen to make an input into the decision making process of Civil Society and Government. Resolutions The Chamber should debate resolutions and set policy for the proper functioning of Civil Society groups. Resolutions should then be forwarded to government and may even be similarly debated in Parliament and adopted as resolutions of Parliament. However, resolutions should not reach the Chamber without proof that they went through the democratic process. We would need to develop rules so as to establish a standard for the “democratic process” in Civil Society deliberations. Under the model, a resolution should address some concern(s) and seek to provide solutions for the smooth functioning of the varying interests within each sector. Where conflicts arise or where resolutions are sent back, The Monitor has the special responsibility of addressing the conflicts through dialogue with the interested parties by summoning them to the sub-committee meetings so that the conflict may be resolved. In the event that the conflict cannot be resolved because of the depth of the conflict of interest, the resolution may be abandoned or it may be amended to exclude the conflict. If the conflict is so substantial as to nullify the resolution, then the resolution should die. It would mean that Civil Society would have no position on the particular issue until one can be thrashed out. Parties summoned must be bound to appear otherwise face the sanctions of the Chamber. These should include dismissing the conflicting interest as a non-interest and this should be reported to the Chamber. Hence the conflicting interest may be deemed to be trivial, non effective or unworthy of consideration. The Resolution could then be passed as if the conflicting interest had never arisen. The Model recognizes that the Chamber will decide on approaches to dealing with conflict. Therefore, depending on the nature of the resolution, it may be treated differently, but most important is that a mechanism should be established for conflict resolution. Remember that resolutions should be brought in good faith. Whatever method is used the model advocates the passage of “safe” resolutions in order to maintain credibility. “Safe” in the sense that the Chamber must avoid taking a position on matters that lack consensus or democratic procedure at the bottom. Provisions can always be made for certain latitude under specified conditions. Each umbrella body is expected to carry a portfolio. It is now left to be decided what sectors should make up the Chambers. Certainly the Monitors will make up what may be termed the Front Line but they ought to be allowed to bring members of their constituency to assist them in presenting resolutions to the Chamber. Resolutions must be justified and therefore, properly represented to the Chamber. The Chamber represents the final stage of any resolution and the Chamber should be fully appraised of the Resolution. Hence, members of the Chamber may ask clarifying questions and give the Monitor time to return with answers. The stages of resolutions should be as follows: First Reading, Presentation, Questions, Answers, Amendments/Clarifications, Second Reading, debate (if necessary) and Passage. The mandatory stages of the resolution before being passed are First Reading, Presentation, and Second Reading. Acts of Parliament should facilitate the work of Civil Society Chambers in the different countries, or they may be facilitated by way of protocol, giving the Chambers a regulatory function to allow for the legal registration of Civil Society organisations. The individual Governments and CARICOM should support the Budgets of the Chambers. The Head of the Chamber should be elected by the Monitors from among themselves and should serve for a period of one year unless otherwise decided by the Chamber. However mechanisms for accountability and recall should be established. The Head and Monitors should then serve as the Executive of the Chamber. The Head of Civil Society would then be responsible for the functioning of the Civil Society Secretariat and the different institutions of the Chamber. The Head should recommend a CEO and a Clerk for the Chamber but this must be agreed on in consultation with the Monitors. Mechanisms for communicating the positions of the Chamber to Parliament must then be established to fit into the Cabinet system of Government. Therefore, positions may be channeled through Cabinet by way of Ministerial Portfolio. This will require some liaison with Permanent Secretaries. For example, communications from the Chamber could be assigned to a Ministry like that of Social Transformation or even the Prime Minister’s Office. So that the Permanent Secretary would be responsible for receiving the positions of the Chamber and for preparing Cabinet Papers on them. These papers should be copied to the Chamber so as to ensure that they did get to Cabinet and to ensure that the intended meaning was conveyed. These papers should not be classified as confidential unless Civil Society positions are being used by the Minister to prepare or incorporate in new Cabinet Papers. Apart from this positions of Civil Society being brought to Cabinet in their raw form are merely a mechanism of protocol to inform Cabinet of Civil Society Positions. However, any Cabinet response should be classified as confidential and considered as inquisitional, informative and/or advisory. The designated Permanent Secretary would need to maintain a close relationship with the office of the Clerk of the Chamber, who would be responsible for setting down and preparing decisions of the Chamber for dissemination. The Permanent Secretary would then be considered as the point of intersection between Civil Society and Government; the point of official communication. However, to establish dialogue and engage Government, Monitors should maintain a Ministerial sub committee made up of the relevant Minister and Permanent Secretary. In terms of establishing dialogue, Ministers should be invited to address the Chamber from time to time or they should be allowed to request the ear of the Chamber. This may require special sittings of the Chamber. A Ministry, Cabinet or Parliament may refer a resolution to the Chamber for its consideration of a matter of National importance. Such a request would be made to the Clerk who, in consultation with the Head of the Chamber, should schedule the request as an item of business. The Chamber would then decide how to handle the request. Suggested Sectors of Civil Society 1. Youth 2. Private Enterprise: trade, tourism, agriculture 3. Disabled 4. Gender 5. Labour 6. CBOs 7. Service Clubs 8. Elderly 9. Children 10. PTAs 11. Culture 12. Health 13. Environment 14. Sports 15. Entertainment 16. Public Education 17. Justice 18. Employers 19. Security & Emergency Response Benefits of the Chamber Once structured, the Chambers will be in a position to convene national consultations at short notice. It will assist Government with sensitizing Civil Society on issues of national and regional interests. Compilation of the work of Civil Society will prove informative to government. This can be done through a reporting system, where organisations compile reports on their activities on a quarterly basis. The Chamber is designed to partner with Government in executing developmental programmes. This will ease the cost to government and at the same time will ensure that developmental programmes and projects benefit the desired targets. Other benefits of the Chamber, apart from establishing dialogue with Government are similar to that of Parliament. Issues of Civil Society will get on the National Agenda as they arise in the business of the Chamber. Hence the Chamber will serve to educate and inform the public on issues of national importance. It will generate serious public interests and serve as point for ordinary citizens to lobby the decision making process other than by partisan politics. Regional Dialogue The model would require the different Chambers to come together to form a Regional collaborating body. This can be called the Civil Society Conference. This should be maintained by CARICOM which should continue to be the coordinating body for the Regional decision making process, if the present structure is maintained. Additionally, Civil Society will need Regional subcommittees covering topics such as: 1. Free Movement & Immigration 2. Culture (integration or amalgamation) 3. Education & Training 4. Labour 5. Justice and Governance 6. Intellectual property 7. Standards, Measures and Currency exchanges These subcommittees should be made up of the Monitors concerned with the subject matter of the different subcommittees. This will enable Civil Society in the region to get together and collaborate on the issues, in order to come up with regional positions. Since subcommittees will be required to travel in order to meet, Civil Society and Governments must be prepared to invest in the necessary infrastructure to facilitate travel and accommodation for Monitors as well as the necessary facilities for holding meetings. Each nation should be required to provide the necessary facilities for their Chambers and if possible, infrastructure for accommodation, which could be shared between Monitors and Ministers in order to maximize the use of facilities and save expenditure. Hence, both Monitors and Ministers could use conference rooms or meeting rooms for convening regional sub committees of Governments and Civil Society Chambers. Each Chamber must have a Secretariat. The cost of running these secretariats should be offset by cooperation with CARICOM, since CARICOM stands to benefit tremendously from the establishment of the Chambers. In terms of disseminating information and a point of contact with all the nations, it would give CARICOM the opportunity of establishing a desk at every Chamber and it will give them a wide choice of venues for meetings, both regional and international meetings. This would also further CARICOM’s ability to stay in touch with and work with national organisations, and in maintaining its presence throughout the entire region. CARICOM would then be in a better position to coordinate action on regional issues and deploy personnel to undertake specific tasks in each of the countries. Conclusion This model is an attempt to point a way forward for Civil Society. It is an attempt to establish a practical way of making Civil Society a part of the decision making process. It is also an attempt to test the seriousness of CARICOM Governments to really involve Civil Society in governance. If therefore, governments are serious, within the next year Civil Society Chambers should be set up or in the process of being set up, but by then some movement towards organisation of Civil Society organisations should be in place. As a regional bloc, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by employing this dynamic. This model should be heralded as a revolution in social engineering without any existing comparison and should turn out to be the envy of the world over and a leading model of Civil Governance for the rest of the world to follow. One caveat is that the Chamber must be tailored to suit genuine needs. It cannot be a political entity, although it may prove to be the best training ground for potential political candidates because of its structure. It will certainly spread familiarity with the political system across a greater cross-section of the population and sensitise the population into rationally participating in the politics of their country and region. Neither must the Chambers be seen as rivaling Parliament or politicians, but as complementing the role of Parliament and the political directorate. Nor can it be a target for Parliamentarians because it must fully represent the public from a non-governmental and non-partisan view, without bias. It must strive to bring balance to the decision making process and seek to assist Government in its developmental programming. Since there is no guarantee that Governments will agree to the physical structures, there is no reason why the model could not be instituted. We should therefore use this conference to make solid contact with Civil Society in each country so that we could collaborate on issues. I would suggest that from the delegations, all the youth, labour, gender, private sector and NGO representatives should get together separately and establish regional coordinating bodies on the different sectors. In this model, the use of technology, especially the internet would be a useful way to communicate. We can set up web communities for each sector and then one for General Conference. Web communities should be used for on-going discussions on topics or issues of concern, which would be raised from time to time. The other method would be to use the telephone and fax facilities. Each sector should have an agenda which members would be bound to work on to come up with solutions and suggestions for developing a better society. We need also to help ourselves. For example, any method of communicating would be by telephone line, whether it is voice, fax or internet. Each Chamber would require a telephone, a fax and an Internet account. These would be the basic communicating vehicles and having the internet would invariably minimize costs since only official documents would need to be faxed or mailed. Otherwise everything else could come via internet. Via internet contact would be at will virtually and only depends on the availability of the other parties. We can also have meetings via internet, which would remove such obstacles as travel and accommodation from meeting and collaborating. We therefore should understand that whatever happens we have a duty to ourselves to implement whatever arrangements we can to facilitate communications. We have grown not to depend on Government for what we want and if the government does not find it fit to assist in this movement we should not let that be an obstacle, “NO OBSTACLE CAN BE GREATER THAN THE CAUSE” Prepared 22 June 2002 By: Roosevelt O King Secretary General Barbados Association of Non Governmental Organisations C/o Poverty Alleviation Bureau, St. Caroline’s Complex, Pine Plantation Road, St. Michael, Barbados 1-246-437-2382 or 430-9050 e-mail: bango@yahoogroups.com

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