– in partnership with civil society
IN BARBADOS last week, Roman Catholic Bishop Emeritus of Bridgetown, Anthony Dickson, made available for public consumption a document advocating ‘A More Humane Barbadian Economy and Society’, based largely on ‘reflections’ of Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical ‘Love in Truth’ issued last July.

The document, released on behalf of ‘Concerned Lay Catholics’, but clearly with the approval of the Roman Catholic Church, was crafted, with wide consultation, by two prominent lay Catholics — Dr Peter Laurie (a former ambassador to Washington and long-serving Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, and business executive, Peter Boos).

It focuses on the valuable partnership roles that could be pursued by government, business community, labour movement and civil society in achieving the envisaged “more humane economy and society.”

In offering a working definition of society, known to have wide acceptance, the document points to those “social and civic organisations, associations and networks outside of the state, the business community and the family.”

It claims that one of the most “positive trends in the age of globalisation, is the growth of a more assertive and participatory civil society…”

The strong emphasis placed on civil society came during a week when a two-day international conference on ‘Strengthening Democratic Processes and Good Governance’ took place in Trinidad and Tobago, as an initiative by civil society organisations prior to the coming three-day Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit due to begin in Port-of-Spain on November 27.

With deepening awareness of and commitment by people worldwide, and particularly in the poor and developing nations, to defend and promote basic their rights, it is now the norm for a Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit to focus on issues of ‘democracy and good governance’.

Consequently, the coming Commonwealth Summit will include a working session on that unavoidable subject –‘democracy, good governance and human rights’.

Of course, not all of the participating Heads of Government can be expected to find that working session pleasant, considering what they face at home in terms of passionate allegations about political repression; electoral, judicial and financial corruption; as well as threats to media freedom.

The results of the conference on ‘democracy and good governance’, organised by local non-government organisations (‘YesTT’ and the ‘Constitution Reform Forum (CRF)’, are to be shared with governing and opposition parliamentary parties, as well as wide circulation among civil society agencies.

Consistent with a tradition to reflect consensus as members of ‘One Community’ at international fora, the participating CARICOM leaders in the Commonwealth Summit would be expected to be forthcoming on issues of democracy and human rights, as they would predictably be on the consequences of the global economic crisis for poor and developing states; the challenges of climate change; and the imperatives of partnership in combating international terrorism.

For CARICOM in general, participation by its leaders at the Commonwealth Summit’s session on issues of democracy, good governance and human rights, they could have been in a better position to point to the differences between high-sounding ‘declarations’ that often flow at international for a — such as the coming Port-of-Spain summit — and failure to take required action to achieve stated objectives. But they themselves have been stumbling.

Charter of Civil Society
A good example, in this context, is the failure to implement the Community’s ‘Charter of Civil Society’ that was ceremonially and enthusiastically signed over a dozen years ago in Antigua on February 19, 1997, to give it functional legally-binding status by an act of their respective national parliament.

Presented as a ‘Protocol of Port-of-Spain’ at a special session of the CARICOM Summit in 1992, the Charter was recommended to be developed as an important element of the Community’s ‘structure of unity’ to deal with a range of matters, such as:

A free press; a fair and open democratic process; the effective functioning of the parliamentary system; morality in public affairs; respect for fundamental civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights; the rights of women and children; respect for religious diversity; and greater accountability and transparency in government.

Very impressive and encouraging indeed are the provisions of this Civil Society Charter. Thanks to the creative imagination of the authors of the seminal West Indian Commission report and to the CARICOM leaders for making it a valuable document of our 15-member Community.

The shameful, sad reality, however, is that the Charter continues to gather dust on the shelves of the CARICOM Secretariat and the offices of Heads of Government and their Attorneys-General for lack of decisive, collective action to transform it into a binding legal document for implementation by ALL member states of the Community.

Five years after the signing of the Charter of Civil Society, there was a two-day ‘Encounter of Civil Society’, organised by the CARICOM Secretariat in cooperation with the Guyana Government in Georgetown. Its primary goal was to encourage progress “towards a new model of social and economic development,” with a special emphasis on consultations with civil society.

The stated objectives included identifying “strategies for development that take into account the needs of the poor and marginalised groups,” and stimulate “new approaches in collaboration with and consultation between civil society and government on development issues…”

Talk, they say, could be easy — whatever the event or forum. Walking the talk is the real challenge, in the face of a continuing credibility divide on strengthening democratic processes for improved governance with active involvement of civil society.

For now, by the time of the Commonwealth Summit in Port-of-Spain, or shortly thereafter, we should learn of the response from the Social Partners group in Barbados (comprising leaders of government, the private sector and labour movement) to the document made available to them from the Barbadian Catholic community, urging the promotion of “a more humane economy and society.”