Voice to Action: International Day of Democracy 2025 | Goals Lounge

Excellencies, colleagues, friends, welcome to the 18th International Day of Democracy. Each year we come together to honor this special day and reaffirm the crucial importance of democracy in people's lives. It is democracy that gives voice, dignity, and agency. It helps protect human rights and build sustainable peace. To begin the program, we have a special message from the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.

Democracy is powered by the will of the people, by their voices, their choices, and their participation. It thrives when the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all are upheld, especially the most vulnerable. A democracy that excludes is no democracy at all. To those who seek to discredit or undermine democracy, I say this, I lived under the dictatorship. And along with many others, I helped rebuild democracy in Portugal. I know the difference. Today, as we mark 18 years of this International Day and 20 years of the UN Democracy Fund, we honor the courage of people everywhere who are shaping their societies through dialogue, participation, and trust. At a time when democracy and the rule of law are under assault from disinformation, division, and shrinking civic space, these efforts are more vital than ever. The United Nations itself is a forum for dialogue, rooting in the opening words of our charter, "We, the peoples." This is a powerful reminder that our legitimacy and purpose derive from those we serve. Let us reaffirm democracy as a force for dignity, inclusion and peace, and work together to ensure it delivers for all.

As Secretary-General emphasized, we must return to the founding spirit of the United Nations, we the people. Democracy begins and endures through people's voices. With this year's theme, Voice to Action, we highlight real practical steps that bring democracy closer to the people. Participating in democratic processes is more than an action, it's a responsibility. I also want to mention that this is indeed the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations Democracy Fund, created under UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2005, and with the support of a committed group of member states The Democracy Fund has supported nearly 1000 projects with local civil society organizations across the world. I would like to give a special thanks to Poland, who just announced an increase in their support to the Democracy Fund. We thank you. Today, we will hear two perspectives. First, how member states are working to renew democracy, and then explore how deliberative democracy is engaging citizens from around the world. To guide us through this important discussion, I'm delighted to introduce our moderator and friend, Tony Macillis from GZERO Media. Tony, the floor is yours.

Well, thank you.

So great to be here. Really terrific. I mean, this is like the talk show set I always wanted, and now I finally have it. So here, my captive audience and all of you watching at home. I'm really looking forward to this conversation on this very important day. Hi, Riley, how are you? Nice to see Penny and all these familiar faces here, which is terrific. And as Anne-Marie just said, we are going to talk about how member states are working to renew commitment to democratic values, the importance of young people, and the role the UN can play in helping to foster stronger democracies. But first, a little audience survey. This is an interactive day for everybody. Based on recognized research, are there more democracies or autocracies in the world today? If you think there are more democracies, raise your hand. Not a single hand. You're all too smart. I guess I shouldn't be doing this at the UN. Maybe a better idea to have done this just out on the street. But so according to the most recent data from V-Dem Democracy Report 2025, there are now more autocracies at 91 than democracies 88. So to get us started about the reasons why and what can and should be done about it, I'd like to bring up two very special guests. First, the permanent rep from Chile to the United Nations, Ambassador Paola Narvaez Ojeda, and also my new friend, Ms. Maria del Carmen Sacasa, Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Director of the Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, UNDP. Come and join me. Thank you both so much. It's great to see you both here. And I guess I want to start with sort of a broad question because Not only is it true that there are more countries identified as autocracies than democracies, but Pew Research Center has been tracking this for quite some time. And over the course of the last about 10 to 15 years, that number has been increasing. So, Ambassador, to start with you, what do you think the reason is for that?

Well, maybe I can't. Well, first, thank you so much for having me today. Thank you to all the organizers, of course, the funds of the United Nations for democracy is why important the signal that we can send to different audiences on the importance of democracy. But regarding your questions, it is difficult to maybe to address all the factors that could be behind this situation that currently we are all living in. But of course, I think that sometimes democracies have had the problem with delivery for the people. And inequalities, unfortunately, are not addressed in the sense that they should. People may feel that their concerns and their specific problems, that social differences, et cetera, are not being addressed by democratic institutions. So some vacuum in the capacity of government to take care of people's necessity could be a factor. Another explanation that is maybe the demographic changes, for instance, maybe in the case of my country, I can use that example. I lived in a country with a dictatorship during my childhood and youth as well. I lived under a dictatorship during 17 years. So for my generation, and of course the older generations, we know the cost of living without democracy. But maybe new generations cannot feel the same because they didn't have the experience. So maybe they can feel that they can be, you know, more relatively evaluating democracy as the main or the most important political system. And they can feel sometimes a liberal democracy could be an answer as well. That could be another factor, I mean, historical dimensions of this phenomenon as well. But we need to discuss further. But also I have to say, and here I'm using my background maybe as a psychologist more than as an ambassador, I think that consistency is quite fundamental. So we can speak about the importance of democratic institution, we can speak about the importance of rule of law, we can do the same with you know, international law as well. But when people see that in fact, those institutions have been not respect for whom that's supposed to do, you are sending a very wrong message as well. So population can see this, oh, well, this is relative, it's not a real, you know, true because people is using this in a not consistent way. So I think that's another factor that can explain how democracy can be eroded also by their own actors.

And I wanted to talk to you specifically about the Democracy Always Summit that you held in July. We'll come to that in just a second, but first, Maria, just to pick up on this thread, 'cause this is really the framing conversation of this event. We hear there's now more autocracies than democracies. I guess the next question is, so what? Is that a cause for concern and why should it be?

Well, I agree with the ambassador that we are currently in a different landscape, you know. It's a different, I think it's a shift of paradigm, an era. And democracies are more open to scrutiny. So people demand more, have more expectations from them. And it's probably a moment where we should definitely discuss how to transform current democracies into something different that allows you to have still freedom and equity and protect the human rights as well. And therefore, you have two pathways across the road, which are development and democracy. I agree with the ambassador that what has happened with the current one is that I don't think that we're in a crisis as itself, but that we definitely need to deliver more on people's needs. People have nowadays social media and have other mechanisms to communicate. So their necessities will not being tackled. I mean, they can communicate among them and create a unique movement, which has happened in Latin America, on demanding publicly with mobility on the streets. So I do think we should move forward and think about what is the next democracy 2.0 that we need for our world.

Well, so this was the point of the Democracy Always summit in July. So first of all, for people who might not be terribly familiar with what happened in Chile there, explain the event, its purpose, and a little bit of what you learned.

But to do so, I have to explain a bit and give a bit of background. I have to go to the last high level week here in the United Nations. And I want to link the discussion on democracy with the discussion on multilateralism, because I think they are very linked. So last year, the governments of Brazil and Spain organized a meeting you know, in the sidelines of the High Level Week to discuss the importance of defending democracy and fighting against extremism. And so that gathering, you know, could the opportunity to gather, sorry, different president of different governments and the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, was there. And during that meeting, President Boric said that the next meeting should be in Chile. So he committed at that moment to have the second conversation on this matter. So we had that in July, convened by the President Boric, but also with President Lula, President Pedro Sanchez from Spain, also the new president of Uruguay and President Petro from Colombia. They were there. They had an important conversation on the importance to also create some groups to address certain issues, for instance, the connection between youth and democracy. the analysis of the new technologies and democracy, and of course, addressing multilateralism and democracy. So around those conversations, we also organized a new meeting here in this high level week next week on September 24, to have also a more open discussion with other heads of state or heads of governments that, you know, will gather here in the high level week to continue analyzing the current situation of democracy. Because we need more political will. We also need different perspectives and approaches on this matter. So I think that what we did in July was to fulfill a commitment that President Boric has with this matter, because as I told you, for Chile, for our own history, democracy is a must, and we need to defend it. Even when the results of an election is not with your political side, we always have to defend.

It's interesting that you say that.

People will.

It's actually interesting that you say that because when you start to dig into the research, oftentimes people who feel disenfranchised within a democracy or who have a negative opinion of it will then go on and say, well, if they are in the UK and they didn't agree with the Brexit vote, right, they will be more likely to have a negative view. of democracy, right? So to pick up on the point of youth, though, which was also a big theme last year during UN General Assembly, I was really struck by this number. Half of the world's population, actually a little more than half, are 30 years old or younger. But there are, I won't do an audience survey again, but 2.8% of parliamentarians elected throughout the world are in that age group, okay? Even in some of the youngest countries, right? You still have a problem of over-indexing. You're nodding, we're gonna talk to you later too. So I guess my question, maybe we'll start with Maria, how do you get, I mean, we've seen so much activism. Yes. We certainly saw it in Nepal. We saw it here in the United States, you know, on college campuses. But how do you translate activism and digital tools into more concrete involvement in the political process, running for office, voting for young people?

I think young people are a little bit disenchanted with reality. They're a little bit not satisfied with the ways that current governments have carried out democracy as a whole. Probably if we have a greater investment in institutions, institutions that really can talk to people, can be near people, on the ground, observing their needs and what they require for their participation as citizens could open some doors for youth to be more engaged. We've done a lot of work for years with youth and with political parties and congressmen and women. And sometimes we see that young people replicate the patterns that they have seen through history. And to make a breakthrough, you need new incentives, new ways of acting and of engaging, ways of engagement. We do believe that democracy is not only a thing about legitimacy, but also a thing about creating the enabling conditions for people to have better opportunities in their lives, And if you see that concretely, probably you will consider this as an option for your country. You were saying about autocracies and democracies, but we are very critical in Latin America about our work as governments and as citizens. But the truth is that we're doing this democracy and development report currently. And more than 60% of the people believe, still believe that democracy is the only way forward to govern their countries. This is not minor because if we have a huge part of the population young, below 30, 28, that means they also want democracies for their lives and for their children.

Well, first, I think that we need to wait the importance of social media in the current trends that we have towards democracy. I think that we are, maybe it's easy to say, but to assess well, and the dimension of the impact of social media in the daily life, it's quite amazing. And of course, they are impacting democratic institutions as well. disinformation. It's also an important factor. So I invite you to see the Santiago Declaration. That was the meeting that we had in July, because there we have many of these dimensions very well described, which are the elements that we need to address to continue reinforcing democracy. And of course, social media and the impact on democratic institutions is quite fundamental. and disinformation and fight against disinformation is also important. And the UN has important initiatives towards this as well. But I want to mention two things. First, I think one missing aspect in this discussion is gender equality. And I have to say this because we have been discussing about democracy for many, many years and we'll talk about representative democracy, but 50% of the population Women are not included. Or we have been included in a very marginalized way. So we do not have complete democracies if we do not have women in power. And the situation that currently we are living, it's also an example or a symptom on how-- and this is hard to say, but we have to say it-- but it's also how patriarchy has failed. And so we need to take into consideration how women can shape democracy in a different manner, in a more inclusive way, also related to youth participation within democracy as well. And why women are outside and we have structural problems on that. And one of them is the sexual division of labor. It's a quite fundamental aspect. Women can go into politics, but they at some point abandoned the scenario. It also happened with ambassadors as well. I have to tell you, my dear Agnes is here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think gender is also quite a paradigm. It's not just a matter of more women in power. It's what that entails.

But I think to, okay, to weave together a couple of your points, both of which are super interesting, I mean, so yes, women are underrepresented. We have still, it's 30 years since the Beijing Declaration, right? And right now it's something like 27% of elected officials globally are women, right? Now it was 11% in 1995, so progress, but like not close enough. That's number one, but then number two, Yes, I think what you're saying about gender work and roles in a family is one issue, but then isn't it also true, and both of you maybe can speak to this, that women are unfairly often and largely targeted on social media?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Having a conversation.

In fact, Penny was here, I don't know if she's still here, but we did a program on that during Committee on Status of Women a couple of years ago, it's particularly that. So Maria, what do you see as the UN's role in making sure women are better represented in government?

Going back to the first part of the question is we have this initiative funded by the Spanish corporation, and it has to do with misinformation and disinformation. And we're working with electoral tribunals, among other institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean. And it's specifically to understand how violence translates itself within social media and for political actors, women that are in politics. And it is astonishing. It is astonishing. The way they address not only the way they think, but also the way they dress, the way they look, it's like incredible. And when you analyze the amount of people participating in social media, But behind the scenes, you see, in Colombia, they did this analysis, is that the majority of them are men. Women do not express themselves as men do in social media. So who marks the trends? Men, which is what the ambassador was saying. So it is absolutely important that we are intentional about changing reality. It's not organic. something we have to tackle, being aware that we have structural deficiencies within democracy, and we need to put the gender approach forward.

So we only have a few minutes left in this segment, and I could talk to you both for quite some time. But if there were one concrete reform or step that you would advocate today, or that you learned about during the conference, or that the UN is currently working on, that you think would begin to repair some of the trust damage, which is a large part of the problem, right, in societies, what would it be?

A main reform, you mean?

Yeah, sort of a first step toward the solutions we're trying to talk about.

Well, I think that we need to be more clear, crystal clear in our national norms regarding the how we address impunity. I think if people, citizens feel that anyone can pass institutions and disregard what democratic institutions has established without any punishment, we are sending a very wrong signal. So we need to reinforce the capacity of our institutions to be severe with those that are trespassing rules. If not, we are sending for young people. I mean, today for a young people, they can feel and they can see examples, very outstanding examples on how trespassing norms don't have any consequences. So how we can have seminars, conference about democracy and its importance if, you know, they are being witnessed every single day that nothing happened with those that are not respecting democracy. So I think that the, I return to my previous comment on consistency. When you are in a family and you are raising your child or your children, you need to act what you said. If not, you are creating people that could be sick. I'm trying to be very practical to explain this, but it's the same with society. It's exactly the same with societies. And the current trend is a bit dangerous as well, because if we do not do this and put institutions above people or above certain persons, we will return to tribalism. And tribalism is a way to destroy society. If you are behind your own way to see things and you do not respect that other visions and positions on certain issues, you are dividing them. And unfortunately, social media is not helping. in the capacity to have a more respectful conversation, public and social conversation.

As the saying goes, the best thing about social media is that it gives everyone a voice and the worst thing is that it gives everyone a voice. Final word to you.

I think that, of course, we need to address the normative part. Some countries in Latin America have been pushing forward the normative agenda. in order to see how social media permeates in society as a whole, understanding that there's a freedom of speech, of course. The other part is developmental. From a development perspective, we have to understand that these pressures we're going through are not only institutional, but also individual and at the community arena. So we need to talk about social cohesion. If we do not have social cohesion in our societies, we are going to have a lot of rupture and a lot of disruption beyond the ones that we already have. And finally, I would say that the political agency, you know, we need to understand that youth is not only a topic about demographics, but it's a strategic option for our societies to move forward.

Right.

This new landscape we're seeing.

Well, we are going to get pretty practical in our next upcoming segment, talk about some specific things that are happening in Malawi and in Ireland and a program out of Australia that's trying to make a difference. I want to thank you both, Ambassador Narvaez Ojeda and, of course, Maria del Carmen Saccasa. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much. Give them a round of applause. So-- With that, I would like to invite up our next panel, and I'm gonna begin with Ian Walker, who's the executive director of New Democracy Foundation. We also have with us, very excited to have the Perm Rep from Malawi, Ambassador Agnes Chimberi Mulunde. And we also have the Perm Rep from Ireland, Ambassador Fergal Meithim, thank you all. So we're gonna talk about deliberative democracy and define what that is, talk a little bit about your work and talk about what's happening in each of your nations. But I kind of want to start the way we started the other conversation, which is just a quick thought from each of you of how we got to this place where trust in democracy is hitting this low point. Let's start with you, Ian.

I think trust got really low because it's actually not a bug, it's a feature. Think about how you win elections. It's most effective if you demonise the other side. And as the previous speakers touched on, this was all well and good when our democracies were designed. A lot of seats were designed in the era of, in Australia, an electorate is the size of one day's horse ride. It's so antiquated. We're in a new era. We need a new way of coming together. The way to win elections is to manipulate public opinion, public opinion, what you think of in the next five seconds. But when you have a chance to think, public judgment, it's a very different way and it's very difficult to solve problems, especially in an election when you've probably promised people some very easy answers.

Ambassador, your thoughts?

Yeah, in fact, public trust is really critical in this deliberative democracy. And why do we erode it? It's when we do things without participation. This achievement made it very, very clear. If there's no inclusion, if there's exclusion, there's no democracy. And Malawi example is that we moved from autocracy into democracy. And what was key was freedom of speech. whereby the citizens could be heard, could contribute to any conversation, could say what they want, what they don't like. And with deliberative democracy, there's a model, citizens jury model that has been introduced in Malawi, and it has been adopted at a local government level. Why has it easily been adopted it's because we consolidated democracy along the way, which means that we were engaging citizens, working with the civil society at local government level. And members of parliament have to respect that. and they are informed on what they are going to take to parliament based on what they hear from the people as they plan their budgets at the local level, as they plan their development projects at the local level. So that creates trust because there is transparency there. But the moment they are not involved, and you know Malawi is a very good example, you've seen that there's been peace all along, even under autocracy and then under democracy, it has all been peaceful. No war, no conflicts, major conflicts.

What do you attribute that to?

For now, with that peace, it's because of interdependency. And we've had our traditional governance system valued under what we call umuntu. Umuntu is a value that is based on humanity or beliefs on humanity that is proved by interdependency and collective decision making. So in any traditional communities, the chief does not make all decisions himself. but the people collectively make the decisions. It's because of that, that because people have been allowed to participate through their chieftain search, through their whatever governance institutions they're participating in, even our political parties, they've had youth wings women wings, so I was interested in the participation of women here. They've been participating in the politics. So all along as we went into democratic consolidation of democracy, people were being engaged. Of course, there have been times when the civil society space has been shrunk a little bit, but with the help of UN and the UN Democracy Fund, we've been really engaging people, engaging governance institutions to really open up for civil society engagement. And we have a NGO law that has been engaged or discussed between government and the NGOs and the donors, development partners, they've had to contribute to say this will lead to real shrinking of space of the civil society or not. And really now we are much into civic engagement more than ever before. So even if whatever problems we are going through with the world changes, with economic difficulties and all that, people are free to express themselves. That's the main important thing. And government listens. And government changes a few things. It's not easy to provide all the finances or the money or even to improve the poverty situation because there's no proper fiscal space in our economic governance space. But still, because we are moving together with the people, the government and the people, we are coming to understand each other on why things are the way they are. But still, there are people who are disgruntled.

And I certainly want to talk more about civic engagement in Malawi. And at first, Ambassador Maithan, so from your perspective in Ireland, what have been the most acute challenges to democracy?

Yeah, I think there are global factors and dynamics, but I think you have to see them at a local level and allow the experience of different islands. So for Ireland, we've been a stable democracy since independence in 1921, right through the fall of governments across Europe in the 1930s, we maintained democracy. So it's very stable in one sense, But you can see that trust's fraying at the edges now. And I put it down to two or three elements. One is the economic crash in 2010, 2011, which really hit Ireland extremely hard. Now, we recovered economically quite quickly, maybe more quickly than we anticipated. But it takes a lot longer to repair the social fabric and the trust that is dented when something like that-- and it was really quite a severe economic crash in Ireland for a variety of reasons. Secondly, then, while that social fabric is gently but slowly repairing with COVID, and Ireland was very obedient, very obedient populace, did lockdown after lockdown, but it did impact on people, on families, on cohesion. And into that mix, you have this new social media toxicity. So I think it's that kind of three big issues, maybe a fraying trust at the edges. And then Ireland, we've particular challenges in relation to implementation and delivery, particularly in relation to housing. So you layer that on top with this toxicity, much of it coming from abroad, a lot of driven, I mean, you say everybody has a right to speak in social media, but sometimes you wonder how much is it bots, how much is it, you know, driven by, um, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, dark forces elsewhere, but that's impacting. So I don't want to say that our democracy is not stable, it very much is, but that trust is fraying at the edges, undoubtedly, like everywhere else.

You know, I should point out, you two are perfect bookings because both Ireland and Malawi are having presidential elections. Yours is, people are going to the polls, yeah, and yours is in October. Conor McGregor dropped out, by the way, just so you know. So, Ian, What is deliberative democracy? And tell me just a little bit specifically about what your organization does.

Sure. The really simple idea, you just touched on it, picture the jury, picture the criminal jury. We take a random selection of everyday people, we expose them to diverse and contested evidence, we give them abundant time, seven, eight days, they can deliberate for days after a trial, we give them a clear task, that's giving citizens a permanent structural role in making a public decision. Deliberative democracy seeks to take that idea and say, well, we really trust, most countries really trust decisions that come out of a jury. Can we apply that in a public policy sense as well? When we first visited Malawi, we met with some national politicians and they said, no one trusts how we deploy community development funds. Everyone thinks it's family development funds, where's money actually going? And so you can't address that through the media. You can't address that through a comms exercise. What's the best way to do it? Take a lottery selection of the population, 50/50 by gender, old and young, rich and poor, and actually give them the best democratic opportunity you can. And the theory is that if you can't communicate to millions of people, but if you can take 30, 40, 50 people and give them a deep experience, the rest of the community will connect with them as people like them. And that's where the public trust dividend really starts to come from.

So, Ambassador, you are the first female ambassador from Malawi to serve at the UN, which is incredible. But also, I'm just curious to that point about people feeling like they're part of the process. What is Malawi doing to encourage more women to enter the political system? And do you think there's still work to be done there when it comes to gender?

Yeah, in fact, when you mentioned the figures that we are now globally 27% and we were 11% in 1995, Malawi has moved in the same direction. Almost in the '90s, we were also 11%. women representation in Parliament, and then we moved it to 22%. But we've been fluctuating. What is the issue? The issue you raised, the fact that always women are attacked by the media. Initially, it was the real press media attacking anybody, any woman who becomes one of those wanting to be a parliamentarian or a local councillor, they would dig deeper into what they've done before. And it becomes too much of a personal attack. And nowadays, even with the social media, the same. That's another problem. I worked with UNDP, who were supporting the women candidates, and what we noted was confidence, the lack of confidence, which means empowerment is key for women, education and being able to access tools for communication, even funds. Because the men, they're able to mobilize funds anytime they go to a bar, they have a drink. And women, they're always in the house. We said, find ways of also networking and be able to mobilize funds for their elections. That was another thing. And then within the political parties, they need to be supported. what was done in Malawi, we made sure that political parties could also contribute to their funding for their candidature. Also, the Electoral Commission cut down the amount, the fee that the women could pay in. So that made it a bit easier for the women to participate. But also they were made to be more in terms of communication. They had to be trained on how to communicate better, how to bring forward their messaging and all that so that they are able to compete with their male folk as much as possible. So we have quite a number of women who have maintained and they are coming forward. But also education is key. Many girls are not educated. They drop out of school much earlier, which means the population that is able to become, to vie for politics or positions like mine are not many. So we need to work hard on the education side so that not many girls drop out of school.

Ian, you wanted to weigh in on that?

I think you opened up a great point Elections alone are never going to deliver representative groups of people we connect with. People who run for election are type A personalities. They like arguing. They love defeating people. And there's going to be skews in the population that whatever measures you put in, that's not to be defeatist, is to say, great, have elections, and then also have a sampling methodology that just samples by basic census variables, and that is the fastest path. We can do both. We always have different houses of parliament. Why not add a house of parliament that will also address some of your youth issues as well? If you follow the population, imagine having a house you can look at and seeing people your age, matched by gender, matched by where you live. I come from Australia where every politician is absolutely richer than the rest of the population. You can fix that at the same time. That's where trust will get built.

Yeah, and I actually want to ask you, Ambassador Maithan, a specific question about political violence. And unfortunately, we've seen too many examples of it, including, of course, just last week here in the United States. But your country obviously endured a pretty tumultuous period. And I'm wondering how that period of conflict informed your democracy and what you learned from it, and if it made you stronger or if you're still dealing with repercussions of it.

Yeah, there's a lot there. I think when I was growing up in the 1970s, 1980s, the conflict in Northern Ireland really impacted on the whole island. It's a very small island. Belfast is 90 miles up the road. And obviously, Ireland's independence and future was all part of the political conflict that was at the heart of it. Um, we, we really tried from a very early stage, and when I say we, the Irish government, political parties, tried to chart a political process forward, um, various stalled attempts, um, that we finally got a peace agreement 25 years later with the British government, the American government, and the parties. But it took a long time. But one of the first moments that I remember in terms of deliberative democracy was the New Ireland Forum in 1983, '84, when the conflict in Northern Ireland was really at its most vicious. And it was an attempt to bring all the political parties on the island together and civic society churchmen, citizens, just to talk about what could a new Ireland, North and South, look like. And it was, in a sense, to look at, OK, every party and community has its own views of what that might look like. But could we just actually engage in debate and consultation? And that was the first real stepping into that kind of deliberative forum space. And we used it again in 1987 when we were getting the peace process really, really going. And then we've used it again on more contentious issues around European Union expansion, ceding powers to the European Union, around international security policy more recently, and also about debates that, when I was growing up, were hugely corrosive in the and they didn't lead to political violence, but they were very, very damaging to our society. And that was around abortion, divorce, and maybe more recently, marriage equality. So we started to look at these four, which were government appointed, but independent bodies that report back to government, very often feed then into our parliamentary process, but also bringing that debate out of Dublin, out of the capital city, having roadshows and dialogues, town halls across the country, really, really important. And it was when we moved into the citizen assemblies, that was a new step, that was a development of that process, drawing on the work that Inen his colleagues did. But I think we realized very early on in the late '60s, 1970s, that the parliamentary politics alone couldn't solve, couldn't bring people together, couldn't solve these issues, couldn't not produce 100% support for anything, but actually build a way of building awareness, understanding, losers consent, very often if there was going to be a referendum, but just enriching the debate and bringing people together in a way that was not purely adversarial that you often see in parliaments. It just wasn't working for us on those big issues, the Northern Ireland issue, European Union expansion, and then those social issues that really tore Irish society apart in the 1980s.

Thank you for that. And before I invite Delphine Shance for some closing, remarks, I do wanna see if there are any questions from here in the audience. Well, there's one right there. We have some, and identify yourself so that we know who you are, yeah. What, there's a microphone?

Oh, there's a microphone.

'Cause we're on TV or sort of TV, yeah.

Well, thank you, and actually for putting this together. My name is Amanda Sorek, I'm with International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, also known as IDEA, so democracy is our thing. We just came out with our reports, the Global State of Democracy reports, that list that this is the ninth consecutive year that we see a decline in democracy globally, with only 55 countries advancing in at least one attribute of democracy and 94 countries declining. And if you look at the past nine years, we see a lot of populism and a lot of populist leaders rising everywhere. So how do you see this nexus between the democratic decline that we see and the rise of populism and what can we do to avoid this from continuing? Easy question.

Somebody want to take that on?

I think we innovate. I think it's as simple as that. We've done elections alone for a long time. So why not start thinking elections and, elections and something else. Populist tends to be a term that gets thrown around when someone you don't like gets elected. But if you think about it, you have to be a populist to win an election. Slogans win. Mobilising people behind 10-second grabs win. And this works up to a point. Once you've won the election, what do you do the day after? Elections are promising everyone that they get to go to heaven. And governing is breaking the news to them that they need to die to get there. If you just think long enough, you'll find the two are linked. Politics doesn't deal well with bad news, and a lot of public policy problems are really difficult. I think the number one thing that hasn't come out today is people just, they don't feel heard. The number one thing we sit there when we think of what to design for, how do you get anyone you pass in the street to go, yeah, that's reasonable, I'll feel heard. If we can pass that test, if we can bring that in, And it is a solvable problem. It's something we've seen in both the examples, sitting here as well. This is a solvable problem. So we're going to do it through innovation. And to put a plug in, maybe you could start by picking up the handbook that will be coming out from the UN Democracy Fund.

Beautiful transition, Ian. It was exactly what I-- exactly. You read my mind. So tell us about the handbook that you've been working on with the UN Democracy Fund and exactly what lessons can be learned from it.

I mean, having done version one of the handbook six, seven years ago now, and actually having worked with both the governments and parliaments represented here today, what we found is both good and bad news. The problem is very consistent around the world, that sense of not being heard, that sense of lack of trust. You can go to very varying national contexts. The really good lesson was these core set of principles that we touched on for citizen deliberation, that idea of just a representative group of people being given a chance to think, You can apply that in massively different contexts. And what we're doing with this update of the handbook later this year is actually now just to really crystallise some of that technical advice. Politicians are architects of where they want a country to go. We are plumber and builder. We give that technical advice and that's what we put in the handbook. And now to see a project like this, we're going to be adding those 50 case studies that we see from around the world. Let's tell the Malawi story. Let's tell the Ireland story. And I won't list the 48 others.

But you can read the book for sure. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much, ambassadors. Both of you. Go ahead.

The only thing I could say is that for Africa, for example, so we have said democracy created space for voices of the people, but has it brought in solutions to their problems? daily problems. Poverty is still a problem in Africa, in my country, and people say, so what? Then I think that's the question. Is the democracy we are pursuing having all the elements that are required to change the lives of the people? Maybe we need to redefine democracy. Thank you very much.

I was, I agree, I was gonna say actually deliver, that's, governments have to deliver, that's really, really important. I think looking at some of our really strong debates in 2015, 2018 on abortion law and on same-sex marriage, it was the media ecosystem, it was local radios with people talking to mothers, sons, people from parts of Ireland coming on and speaking to their local communities through local radio, not mediated through the capital, through the metropolis, that's really important. So different sources of information, people telling their own stories and connecting, trying to get past that trust element, trust deficiency that we do see at the moment between, you know, high politics and local communities.

Well, Ambassador Maithon, Ambassador Chimbeeri and Ian, thank you so much for being here. I'm now going to call up for some final thoughts. Yes, give them a round of applause. That was terrific. Thank you. Delphine Chams of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, representative of the Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Hi, how are you?

I'm doing good, thank you.

Good, all right, take it away.

Yeah, well, maybe just some final reflection on what has been said. And I mean, obviously, we all know that democracy has been questioned, has been challenged. We see more and more countries and affected by a heavy disabilization by organized crime or we see others with a heavy disinformation. I mean, that's actually been transpired in a lot of the fact that citizens really have this lack of public trust in the institutions. So obviously in UNODC, where it's our core mandate to really ensuring criminal justice, ensuring the implementation of AGC 16, it was really at the core of our work, fight against corruption, against terrorism, against organized crime and cybercrime, because we've been talking so much about the role of the social media. And there's going to be this new multilateral in convention on cybercrime about to be signed in Hanoi next month. So this is a way where member states can really reaffirm their strong engagement. So just some of the reflection on what has been said, probably the more is like one of the point is really the engagement of the youth, because, you know, let's just, we all talk about the issues on democracy and this lack of trust. So youth, and I think most of the UN entities are not really engaging as a cross-cutting objective to really engage youth, but at a very early stage. So they should, it's not only as a beneficiary, but also as like really enabler of change. And this is also something that is really at the core for UNODC and we will be promoting particularly on the issue of corruption, because corruption and I think one of the point that was made is like, yes, when youth actually come into power, they tend to kind of reiterate or kind of engage into very similar policies that have actually been complained before. So it's very important that, you know, we make them understand what is corruption, the definition of corruption, what are some of the behaviors that shall not be tolerated. And this is a way by starting very, or at early stage, engaging with schools, engaging with university at different stage, we get to get them engaged into what is corruption. And there is this very interesting initiative, which is called the Hackathon, in which you have young people actually building new solutions against corruption to kind of make them suggestions for policies, for tools to fight against corruption and make them like available to governments. But I think we've also talked about public trust, and I think it was a very important element, and also the fact that there's a lack of cohesion, which very often led to this kind of disengagement from democracy, what you believe in democracy could be the solution. And it's also very important for this because there are different stakeholders to really make sure that because the civil space is really always shrinking, we as UN should really always make sure that we give the voice to the civil society and try to engage this kind of multi-dialogue on various issues, obviously in our area on anti-corruption. So we really try to promote this call for leaders in which we are engaging with social media companies, with private sector, with civil society to really come up with initiatives and policy, make them available to governments and engage into this dialogue with the national institutions. And finally, I mean, there are many points that have actually been made, but it was also in in ensuring that there is this freedom of speech. And freedom of speech also starts with many stakeholders, but particularly the journalism. And we know that journalists are really trying, they're the one very often that are the whistleblowers in some of the big anti-corruption cases, which really involve people high in society. So that's why it's very also important to engage them, to make them provide them with tools on how they could really also do their investigation work, but they are protected from the society. So always engaging this call for all the journalists against corruption is also a way for us that we believe is a way of contributing because we know that they have a lot to contribute, but of course within a certain parameters, because what is very, very important is democracy is never going to prevent from violence and political violence as we've seen, but it really offers a sort of a norm of accountability. And that's why it's so important that, you know, the institutions are the way in which some of those should be. And that's why we're putting so much effort on restoring and ensuring strengthening the criminal justice system, because really, it's only through this way that, you know, we will be able to and maintain that the principles of democracy accountability.

We talked about impunity, of course, and maybe just one quick question, if I because you raised a great point about free speech. And I think what we've seen, we've heard the importance of free speech to build a democracy, but we've also seen in practice, free speech for me, but not for thee, you know, is oftentimes, it's like, it's free speech as long as I like what you're saying. So what have you seen that has been effective in fostering an open dialogue, encouraging young people to speak to people with different viewpoints, right?

We have this, it's like actually engaging with them at the very early stage, engaging with them through educational programs. And I think this is really the key. It's changing the mindset from the beginning so that they're not get influenced at the later stage. So they have their own mind about what is right and what is wrong, what are the key principles that forms democracy, but also on sudden corruption. But I think we've also talked about gender equality. I think it's a very, very important way. And we've also discussed the fact that having women in power and not only at parliamentarian level, but also within the criminal justice system, women within the police sector, with the security sector, because they have this understanding that is not necessarily the case when you have a majority of male dominant in all those various sectors. So this is also a way where you could actually get a greater tolerance towards each other because you have those people that are the one that's really making, applying the laws as well as developing the laws. So I think it's also a very, very important element. So, I mean, on this International Day, of course, the picture could be a little gloomy, but There are a number of initiatives which are taken at various levels from the civil society, from the UN, from member states themselves. And I think we have to really leverage on those initiatives. Maybe they may not necessarily have a huge impact, but we've always seen the number of percentage of parliamentarian women, they've actually led from 11 to 28%. So there are progress. So it's really making sure that we promote those progress, that we make them known, and that we really engage with all sectors of the societies.

Delphine Chans, that was terrific. Thank you so much. Obviously, we've covered a lot of ground and we could probably do a deep dive into every one of these aspects in upcoming programming. But I want to thank all of our distinguished speakers. You were all terrific. And the International Day of Democracy reminds us that democracy is not only about principles, but about practice. From voice to action, let's continue to renew our commitments. make democracy real in everyday lives, and how about just be a little better to each other in general. Thank you all for being here in the room, and thanks everybody watching at home.