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At OAS, Experts Debate Role of Government, Private Sector, and Civil Society in Strengthening Democracy

Leaders of international organizations and representatives from prominent multinational corporations met today to debate the connection between governments, the private sector, and civil society in the strengthening of democracy, within the framework of the Corporate Democracy Seminar held today at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

The panel’s moderator, John D. Sullivan, Executive Director of the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), began the discussion with a call to “think in a progressive private sector”. “When people say private sector they are really thinking international corporations but I will point out that much of the work in building democracy, especially in Latin America, will probably be done by the domestic private sector, which includes local firms, family businesses and the informal sector.”

Federico Riggio, Head of International Affairs of the Italian oil and gas multinational ENI, reflected on the spearheading role that companies like his can play to start planting the seed of democracy in places where it hasn’t flourished. “Because of the nature of our business, when you live in a country and you work with those people for forty years, you have created an enormous supply chain because when you come first to a country, you need everything, from water to food, to tools, technology, people well trained, and by doing so you create in these countries, a class, executives, government people than can, if well supported from the outside, create a democratic pattern for their own lives and culture,” he said.

Michael Hershman, from the Fairfax Group and Founder of Transparency International in Berlin, explained that from his experience “one of the most important lessons learned is that transformation of government is more difficult that transformation of business.” He said he parts from the assumption that the very changing nature of democracy, with successions of power, makes the “education” process for governments longer than for businesses, whose nature is much steadier. “When we did make progress in helping transform governments, we’ve often overcome many obstacles only to be confronted by a new government coming in, which changed the nature and face of what we were doing, but in the corporate environment we find that when we deal with policies and procedures, amongst corporations we find that those changes stay regardless of the change of leadership.”

The Director of Global Trade Policy for Procter & Gamble, Scott Miller, praised the achievements in democracy in Latin America in the last few years attained with the support of the private sector, and glimpsed a promising future for the region, especially in standards of quality of life. According to him, “Over the past fifteen years, many of the big economies in Latin America had really gotten their macroeconomic house in order and also many economies had made a major step towards opening themselves to foreign trade and investment which has made a huge difference and has improved citizens’ lives.”

Closing remarks and conclusions were offered by the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Mongolia to the United States, Davaasuren Damdinsuren, and by the President of the Council for a Community of Democracies, Robert LaGamma.

Damdinsuren said, on behalf of his country, which will soon become Chair of the Council for a Community of Democracies, that “it is very important that civil society and representatives of the private sector get together to share the best practices and experiences to strengthen democratic principles and democratic governance.”

To conclude, LaGamma stated that “the corporate world can not be assumed to accept our easy assumptions about the virtues of democracy. This is a very hard-headed community and they need to experience the value of democracy to their own businesses and their own economic futures. Therefore a lot of work has to be done and I think it has been done in the context of democratic communities.”

A gallery of photos of the event will be available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-635/11