The Voluntary Group for the Follow-up of the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the Organization of American States held on October 28, in the main building of the OAS General Secretariat in Washington, DC, its tenth meeting, with the participation of 13 Member States. The meeting was led by the Chair of the Voluntary Group, Ambassador Sebastián Kraljevich Chadwick, Permanent Representative of Chile to the OAS.

As the first item of the agenda, Mr. Ian Morrison, from the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs Canada, made a presentation about the Partnership of Technical Assistance program, an initiative on providing its judicial experts’ technical assistance to the State that request it. This program is aligned with the objectives of the Voluntary Group.

It was followed by the delegation of Chile presenting a proposal for the development of a workshop entitled “Money and Politics”, focused on the theme of electoral campaign and political parties financing, with the goal of understanding the mechanisms of financing and contribute to the strengthening of transparency and accountability, as well as promote the credibility and citizen trust in democratic institutions.

The officer in charge of the Department of Sustainable Democracy and Special Missions, María T. Mellenkamp, then presented the schedule for the Group’s meetings these coming months. This was done with the objective of organizing efforts in order to fulfill the General Assembly’s mandates, including operative paragraph 6 of AG/RES. 3029 (LIV-O/24) “STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY” regarding the presentation to the Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs (CAJP) of proposals to strengthen democracy in the hemisphere.

There was also a presentation by the Permanent Representative of the United States to the OAS, Ambassador Francisco Mora, on proposals to fulfill operative paragraph 6. He outlined initiatives to strengthen democratic institutions, combating disinformation, and the role that the Voluntary Group could play.

Later, the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Mr. Pedro Vaca Villareal, referred to the issue of disinformation, highlighting the challenges linked/related with freedom of expression, as well as the importance of the articulating the instruments or combating disinformation.

The Voluntary Group adopted the following agreements:

1. Mr. Ian Morrison’s presentation on the Technical Assistance program of the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs Canada, which will be shared among all OAS Member State, was noted.

2. Organization of the workshop “Money and Politics” will move forward and will include the topics of regulation and oversight.

3. The proposed meeting schedule presented by the Secretariat for Strengthening Democracy was approved. It was also agreed to replace the meeting dates scheduled for November 11, 2024, and January 23, 2025, as follows:

• December 2, 2024

• December 16, 2024

• January 16, 2025

• February 20, 2025

• March 20, 2025

• April 17, 2025

• May 22, 2025

• June 26, 2025

4. It was agreed that each meeting to be convened must be related to one of the topics in the Work Plan approved by the Group.

5. To request the Permanent Council to include an agenda item in an upcoming regular meeting in order to inform this body of the Voluntary Group’s progress.

The Voluntary Group for Follow-up of the Inter-American Democratic Charter was created in response to the mandate of resolution AG/RES. 3004 (LIII-O/23) STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY, to foster dialogue, horizontal cooperation, and the exchange of best practices among its members, and to identify opportunities within the principles of the OAS Charter and the Inter-American Democratic Charter to strengthen their democracies.