On June 30, 2016, the Community of Democracies (CoD) launched a Democracy and Security Dialogue (DSD). Along with Dr. Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State and CoD co-founder and Ambassador Maria Leissner, CoD Secretary General, ECNL’s Executive Director, Ms Katerina Hadzi-Miceva Evans was one of the speakers on the panel at the launch of the initiative.
The year-long initiative aims to expand understanding of the role of democracy in security efforts and will bring governments together in a highly participatory consultation process to develop best practices for security based on respect for democracy and human rights.
"Our aim is to foster a dialogue and produce a report on two tracks – first, exploring democratic strategies to counter terrorism and violent extremism; and second, reinforcing the argument between democracy and peace," Secretary Albright said.
"Efforts to counter security threats are greatly enhanced by adherence to democratic norms and an unyielding commitment to human rights," Secretary General Leissner said.
In her remarks, Ms Hadzi-Miceva Evans provided 3 key recommendations as the DSD moves forward:
- the importance of gathering data and evidence around concrete measures that have been applied by governments;
- researching and analyzing good practices, but also good learning as to why certain initiatives may not have achieved their goal in practice; and
- the importance of designing a consultation process that will reach out to the local level, to gather important learning from the richness of initiatives and groups working with communities on these issues.
To learn more and watch the video of the launch event, see: https://www.community-democracies.org/ and follow the #DemSec hashtag on Twitter.