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Plans are underway to hold the 2007 Community of Democracies Conference in Bamako , Mali. The conference is tentatively scheduled for November 14-17, 2007. On July 11, 2005, the Ambassador of Mali to the United States , H.E. Abdoulaye Diop, assumed the Chairmanship of the Convening Group of the Community of Democracies. CCD President Richard C. Rowson attended the transfer of the Chairmanship to Ambassador Diop from the previous Chairman, Ambassador Carlos Portales, who is also Chile 's Director General of Foreign Policy. The Convening Group governs the movement of more than one hundred democratic countries. The event took place during a dinner at the Residence of the Ambassador of Chile to the US Andrés Bianchi.
March 1, 2006, brought together the sixteen members of the Community of Democracies' 16-member Convening Group in Bamako.
On March 6th and 7th, 2006, the Chilean NGO Participa transferred the nongovernmental secretariat of the Community of Democracies to its Malian counterpart. The new Malian secretariat was formed from a coalition composed of a number of nongovernmental organizations headed by Dr. Oumar Makalou, President of the Bamako research center CERDES.
The newly created International Steering Committee, representing civil society, held its first meeting in Bamako on March 9th and 10th, 2006. During its deliberations the Steering Committee defined its role and its relationship to the new Malian nongovernmental secretariat and worked to determine how best to implement the commitments made at the Santiago Ministerial Conference and how it plans to advance the work of the international democracy movement in the build-up to the 2007 Community of Democracies Ministerial Conference in Bamako. The 21-member International Steering Committee includes four civil society representatives from each of five world regions as well as a representative of the nongovernmental secretariat in Bamako. Among its members is Dick Rowson, President of the Council for a Community of Democracies.
The International Steering Committee has most recently held meetings in New York and Taipei, Taiwan.
CCD has also taken the lead role organizing the nongovernmental process of the Community of Democracies leading up to the Bamako Ministerial. Under a grant from UNDEF, CCD has organized a series of “Regional Roundtables,” which will address the issues of democracy in the five regions of the world: Africa, Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Europe and the Americas. As of February 2007, both the African and Asian Roundtables have been completed, in Mali and Taipei respectively.
CCD continues to work with our allies in the field to assist in the preparation for the Bamako Conference. Look here for updated information as events unfold.
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