Europeans Reluctant To Back UN Democracy Fund

By Ramesh Jaura 
April 26, 2006
Inter Press Service News Agency
Original Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33018

BERLIN, Apr 26 (IPS) - The world's largest democracies, India and the United States, have emerged as the two biggest supporters of a global fund to promote democratisation. 

European nations, on the other hand, have been reluctant to shore up the new facility known as the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF), a United Nations document released in Brussels last week reveals. 

The document circulated by Thierno H. Kane, director of the civil society organisations division at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), at the Civil Society Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries Apr. 19-21 shows India and the United States leading contributions with 10 million dollars each. Australia comes next with 7.3 million dollars. 

Qatar with a small donation of two million dollars was still ahead of European nations. The country, itself a monarchy, has pledged another eight million dollars. 

Contributions from Germany, Britain and France to the fund -- that had received 32.48 million dollars from 16 countries by the beginning of March -- amounted to no more than 1.6 million dollars, 609,350 dollars and 588,100 dollars respectively. 

UNDEF expects an additional 16.54 million dollars in the coming months from five countries including Chile and Bulgaria. More than half the new amount (7.9 million dollars) is expected to come from the United States. 

The fund aims to support small and specific programmes to promote democracy. 

About 80 percent of the money will go for building capacity at country level, with the rest for global or regional processes, Kane told IPS at the Brussels meeting. The minimum amount of funding envisaged is 50,000 dollars and the maximum 500,000 dollars. 

The first call for online applications was made Apr. 15, with May 15 as deadline. 

''The Fund will ensure that gender issues are explicitly addressed and that greater participation of women in democratisation and participatory processes is a fundamental objective of the project,'' Kane told IPS. 

The fund seeks to encourage exchange of experiences between countries of the South, in particular on peaceful transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy, and on post-conflict democratic processes. 

''The areas of focus for the fund are predicated on the view that support to many of the institutions of democracy is already quite well developed and that the democracy fund's comparative advantage might be in supporting the enabling environment necessary for these institutions to function more effectively,'' the UNDEF document says. 

It is founded on the view that ''democracy concerns the relationship between people and their institutions of governance, and that this is not confined to periodic voting in elections.'' 

Kane said the document recognises that while democracies share common features, there is no single model of democracy. 

''Democracy, development and respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing,'' he said. 

I would in fact insist that democracy through participation should be strengthened and emphasised while ensuring that democracy by representation is also working, Kane told IPS. 

UNDEF plans to keep national authorities informed of all country-level activities supported by the fund, including those for which non-governmental organisations are given direct support. 

The fund will also ensure that beneficiary institutions -- official or civil society -- are of good standing and appropriately accountable,'' the document says. To this end, all country-level proposals for UNDEF funding will be accompanied by an advisory note signed by the UN resident coordinator confirming that conditions have been met. 

The fund is established as a trust fund by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He first proposed a democracy fund in his report to the UN General Assembly. This formed the basis for discussion at the UN summit meeting last September. The meeting marked both the 60th anniversary of the United Nations and a five-year review of the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 

Annan also announced a plan to establish the fund at a summit meeting of the African Union last July -- some nine months after U.S. President George W. Bush broached it in his speech at the 2004 UN General Assembly. 

Bush declared that such a fund would help countries lay the foundations of democracy by instituting the rule of law, independent courts, a free press, political parties, and trade unions.''