Learning lessons for democracy: UNDEF participates in the 2016 Warsaw Dialogue for Democracy

Civil society representatives from around the globe gathered in Poland from the 15-16 December at the Warsaw Dialogue for Democracy to discuss ways to reinforce the values crucial to democracy.  

Under the overall heading “From Past to Future: Strengthening Democratic Values” participants considered a range of important questions from citizen oversight over elections to the role of education in democracy. There was also a workshop focusing on citizen activism in the European neighbourhood.  

UNDEF was represented by Programme Management Officer Dieter Wagner, who shared information with participating civil society organizations about a new UNDEF initiative developing a web resource to make available key insights and lessons learned from over 600 UNDEF projects.   

During the two day event UNDEF also learned more about ongoing initiatives and engaged civil society actors about what would help them design and implement better democracy projects. In these discussions participants from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Poland, Ukraine, Armenia, Kenya, Pakistan, Venezuela, Cambodia and the United States welcomed UNDEF’s lessons learned initiative and hoped that it would support democratic participation globally.  

A short clip on the event found here.