Pocantico, New York. Education specialists and democracy advocates from thirteen countries meeting from June 8-10 at the Rockefeller Conference Center in Pocantico, New York have produced a global strategic plan to foster the teaching of democracy in schools and through institutions of civil society around the world. The Conference was held as a result of a recommendation of the November 2002 Seoul Community of Democracies Non-Governmental Forum that urged the drafting of a global strategy to advance democracy education.

Educators and NGO representatives from Mexico, Chile, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Tunisia, India, Indonesia, Russia, Poland, Latvia and the United States met with counterparts from UNESCO, the World Bank, the UN Development Program, the OAS and agencies of the United States Government to define the needs of both new and traditional democracies in the field of democracy education. They agreed that educating citizens, especially young people, is imperative to the consolidation and fostering of democratic values that are indispensable to the health of democracy in the 21st century.

Participants in the conference defined regional and cultural barriers that must be overcome and the need for resources and sharing of best practices and suggested ways in which education about democracy could be more effectively strengthened. They explored the contributions of multilateral, national and private donors and urged that more resources be made available. The educators also heard from Pablo Zuniga of the Organization of American States who described his organization's work in the Americas of networking governments and NGOs in support of democracy education. They also considered efforts of networking in West and Southern Africa to foster cooperation in the field.

The democracy experts also heard a presentation from Elizabeth Coleman, the President of Bennington College in Vermont on a pioneering effort to make democracy the core of its social science curriculum in place of tradition discipline-oriented studies. She also discussed how institutions of higher education can contribute to democracy education. That theme of democracy education and higher education was also elaborated on by Professor Mohd Aslam who described India's widespread university training on democracy at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

The ten page strategic plan produced by a drafting committee headed by South African law professor David McQuoid-Mason, will be disseminated to the Convening Group of the Community of Democracies consisting of Mexico, Chile, Mali, South Africa, India, Korea, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Poland and the United States. Its recommendations will be shared with other governments, multilateral institutions and non-governmental organizations around the world. The Community of Democracies first brought Ministers of Foreign Affairs and democracy advocates and advocates from more than 100 countries together in Warsaw, Poland in June 2000 where it produced a declaration on democracy. It met for the second time in Seoul, Korea in 2002 and is planning its third conference to be held in Santiago, Chile early in 2005. Support for democracy education has been a consistent theme of the Community of Democracies movement.