Advocacy and civil participation in the eLAC process analysis

Although WSIS was primarily an intergovernmental space for dialogue, it was considered important to include perspectives from other sectors such as civil society, in the regional processes. As such, after the evaluation of the initial phase of the process (eLAC2007) and the definition of political commitments and goals for the second phase (eLAC2010), during eLAC’s last ministerial meeting in El Salvador, governments agreed to add a civil society entity in the regional follow-up mechanism. The idea was for this organisation to serve as a link between regional governments and civil society institutions that form part of the process in the region. These same organisations met and decided that APC would take on this role.

In order to evaluate the current state of participation and incidence by civil society and particularly of APC’s communication and information policy program in Latin America (CIPP-LA), in the eLAC process and how best to improve it in future, APC saw the need to conduct a study. The report, “Analysis of participation and incidence in the eLAC process” analyses the conclusions of a survey presented to actors involved in ICT work in the region and with a knowledge of the eLAC process. The results were first used for an analysis of actors through which indices of relevance, collaboration, and participation in networks were determined.

The results of the report indicate that besides deepening participation by civil society in the process, it is necessary to make it more effective. It is also clear that the role of APC as a link between governments and civil society organisations can be an important way to achieve this.

Also, the continuous participation of all actors involved in the process is needed: there is a logical connection between the levels of interest and participation, which are then directly reflected in the actions of these actors at national and regional levels.