Home । About Us ।  Local Governance । Intermediate Level of Government ।  Security Sector Reform । Representative and Participatory Democracy  ।  Afro-Colombian Issues  ।  Culture and Arts  ।  News ।  Events  ।  Photo Gallery । Contact Us

Representative and Participatory Democracy: Lessons Learned a) Institutional strengthening of city councils is an urgent challenge to further deepen representative and participatory democracy in Colombia. In the preface of a book published in 2001 by the Ministry of the Interior, Universidad Javeriana and Georgetown University on "Políticas Municipales de Fortalecimiento de la Participación Ciudadana", written by Miguel Ceballos and Gerard Martin, and based on extensive field work, the case was made to start fostering and supporting policies and programs to strengthen city councils as a crucial tool in deepening democracy at the local level. The book found wherever it looked a surprising over-focus on promotion of participatory democracy, and a total lack of interest for representative democracy. This was found to be true for GOC and NGO based programs, as well as for WB, IDB, USAID and other bilateral sponsored programs. The over-focus on participatory democracy seemed to be inspired by two main, but biased arguments: (i) formal institutions as Congress, Assemblies and City Councils are corrupt and should be circumvented (ii) participatory democracy is a higher form of democracy than representative democracy. b) During the 1990s, the GOC introduced a range of new mechanisms to stimulate citizen participation at the local level, in particular 38 formal channels of citizens participation, including Consejo Municipal de Planeación, Consejo Municipal de Política Social, Consejo Municipal de Seguridad, Junta Municipal de Educación etc. At the same time, NGO's and bilateral and multi-lateral donor agencies sponsored many initiatives to promote civil society initiatives to promote participatory democracy. However, not a single significant initiative from GOC, NGO's or cooperation focused on enhancing Representative Democracy at the local level, i.e. on support for City Council reform. c) Since 2002, with technical and financial support from Georgetown/USAID, the GOC has created concrete initiatives to enhance representative democracy at the local level, in particular (i) a monthly in-service training program Viernes del Concejal, (ii) a bi-weekly national TV program Viernes del Concejal, (iii) a quarterly national government magazine Concejos en Contacto. These innovative initiatives were very well received and rapidly very well recognized among city council members country wide, and in particular among city councils of small and intermediate towns. The city council focused GOC programs have started to inspire similar efforts in other countries in the region and beyond. d) One of the greatest strengths of the GOC city council oriented initiatives is that they are made (potentially) available in the whole country, and that they are tailored to the needs of city councils in small and isolated municipalities. This is most evident for the bi-weekly TV Program: filmed in small municipalities, during a 3 days immersion with the local city council, it is transmitted on the public channel Canal Institucional, as well as on various regional channels, who receive free copies of the program. Tapes of the program are sent to each of the decentralized ESAP offices, and are reused for training. The low cost quarterly Magazine Concejos en Contacto reaches each and all of Colombia's 12.000 city councilors individually, as well as all mayors, governors, and other relevant stakeholders, including public libraries and NGOs. As for the Viernes del Concejal monthly in-service training program, it is already serving 450 municipalities and covering 12 departments fully, and it can make immediately operational in any additional Department, once counterpart resource commitment is guaranteed in the respective Department. The in-service training has been supported, in most Departments, by public and semi-public institutions (including chambers of commerce), and with a crucial role for local universities as well. e) From the start, and over the period 2002-2005, a significant amount of public resources were committed to these programs, in particular by ESAP, MIJ, as well as by the city council members themselves. This was partly matched by funding from Georgetown/USAID. MIJ and ESAP, with technical support from GU, prepared in 2005 a proposal BPIN for DNP, requesting General Budget funding in order to guarantee sustainability of the three programs (Magazine, TV program, in-service training). However, ESAP and MIJ have delayed presenting this request to DNP, apparently because other (higher priority) requests for funding were also presented by ESAP and MIJ to DNP. USAID continued sponsoring of these initiatives through the ADAM program should insist on ESAP/MIJ presenting a BPIN request to DNP for national budget funding in addition to resources already provided by ESAP and MIJ. f) GU has recommended ESAP and MIJ to further stimulate co-financing of Viernes del Concejal training program by intermediate level agencies, following the example of Antioquia, where IDEA/Escuela de Gestion Publica/Universidad de Antioquia/Gobernacion have continuously co-financed the program. A large majority of city councilors, who have had the opportunity to participate in the VDC program, consider that intermediate level governments should co-finance the VdC training program. However, many times, the intermediate level, and in particular public agencies like the Departmental Government, regional offices of ESAP, and Chambers of Commerce, while interested in co-financing, undergo administrative difficulties in making money available for line items as personnel (the teachers) and lunches (during the training sessions). More guidance is needed on this. g) Our comparative research shows that city councils in Colombia are inefficiently structured (e.g. they session too much; they prepare their sessions badly; they do not have or do not apply rules of parliamentary procedure). The "Ley de Bancadas" may improve some of this starting August 2006. Some countries - e.g. the Netherlands - have recently reformed the functions of city councils, redefining the relations between legislative and executive relations at the local level in order to strengthen oversight. MIJ has expressed interest in Georgetown University's Colombia Program supporting an option paper on political and institutional reform of city councils. Results would also be useful for FENACON. h) Georgetown considers - based on its field research and 5 YR experience with implementing technical assistance towards institutional strengthening of city councils, that support for city council enhancement will logically have to take place through two channels: via Government of Colombia -GOC- and via National Federation of City Councils -FENACON. While GOC and FENACON have currently a constructive relation, activities as promoted by an interest organization as FENACON are and should be in part different from those promoted by a government. A distinction in roles does not exclude cooperation on specific programs and activities.