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Narrator: Thank you for listening to Dialogues on Democracy
featuring stories and expertise from IFES' 25 years
of supporting sustainable democracy. I'm Joseph Marcus.
As Myanmar continues to enact political reforms
IFES works closely with the Union Election Commission (UEC)
and civil society organizations to ensure all voices are heard.
While important steps have been taken to reduce the barriers to access,
there is still a lot of work to be done in Myanmar's nascent electoral system.
Bill Sweeney IFES President and CEO
Paul Guerin IFES Chief of Party in Myanmar
were interviewed by Megan Roberts Program Officer for Southeast Asia
about the cross-cutting work in Myanmar as gender
and disabled persons organizations work together to ensure
equal access to the political process.
Megan Roberts: What are some of the ways that these CSOs can work and have worked together to break
through barriers to the electoral process?
the United Nations Charter says all persons
have the right to choose their government and the challenge
is to make all institutions of a
society in transition recognized all persons.
Often they're seen as specific issues and
what we tried to do here is bringing women's civil society organisations
and disabled persons organizations together to mainstream
the issues right across the strategic plan
and across the electoral process so they're not just seen
as just a target group or a specific issue but
it runs right through the election process.
Megan: The IFES project in Myanmar cutting edge because it brings together to
marginalized groups that are often addressed separately
women and persons with disabilities, what are some of the advantages of working
with both on electoral access?
Myanmar is not a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights which is a challenge, but it is a signatory of
the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
and also signatory of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
so this is a good starting point
citizens to to reference these obligations
and push for their rights to be acknowledged.
The first challenge all of these organizations all these advocates face
is to make everyone understand that all of these
perspectives are legitimate and all these voices have to be heard.
Leaders of the disability movement sat with members of the election commission
and neither had ever engage either
in terms of the issue, or in terms of the leaders, in terms of the
people, in terms of the causes so being that
platform of legitimacy is also a platform for advocacy.
Megan: How is life is helping citizens gain greater access to the electoral and political process?
IFES' role here is as facilitator.
So we bring civil society organizations
in joint workshops with staff members of the Union Election Commission.
We believe through these joint workshops people get to understand each other
and trying to promote more credible elections, more inclusive participation
and we've run a few of them and I think it's really starting to bring down some barriers.
IFES engaged in strategic planning process
that plan is an object of consensus, shared values, shared determination, shared vision
and that planning process has reached out
both to the professional staff of the Election Commission
as well as to the leadership on a spectrum of
organizations ranging from political parties
to activist groups representing
gender, representing different ethnicities, representing disability,
representing prior political prisoners and human rights activists.
The goal is a shared document
that will be accepted endorsed and implemented by the election commission.
This process has been extraordinarily exciting to see people have real input
with leadership from the country as they make a path forward,
and benefited working with a spectrum of
advocates is that they build new friends, new allies, new coalitions
so as to greater achieve the possibility of all persons.
Narrator: For more Dialogues on Democracy and information about IFES'
work in Myanmar please visit our website
www.IFES.org