Civil Society Summit Declares Priorities for Russia and the US
July 15, 2010
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The core activity of the IREX-convened Civil Society to Civil Society Summit (C2C), held in June, was a series of daylong steering committee meetings focused on 10 spheres of civil society development. The committees consisted of approximately 40 Russian and American representatives.
By the conclusion of the summit, the committees had established several common themes and defined numerous very specific priorities. The preliminary summary of the conclusions follow, and a more comprehensive report will be available soon.
To request a copy of the final report please send a request to newsroom@irex.org.
Five Common Themes Articulated by the Groups
• New technology is a potential boon for effective C2C collaboration
• Opportunities for ongoing collaboration need to be institutionalized, with more sophisticated and complete information exchange
• Mentoring and training between Russian and American NGOs needs to be strengthened
• Greater emphasis needs to be given to public outreach and information campaigns
• The bilateral process should be continued
The 10 Spheres Represented in the Steering Committees
3. Primary and Secondary Education and Youth
5. Anti-Corruption and Institutional Integrity
7. New Media
10. Migration and Combating Human Trafficking Preliminary Summary of Conclusions
PLENARY SESSION 1
Public Health
• Support Text4baby International. This initiative is a direct result of work begun by the health working group at the 2009 Civil Society Summit in Moscow. Text4baby International is a nationwide free mobile information service aimed at promoting maternal and child health among underserved women and is the first attempt to use mobile technology to support pregnant women and new parents in Russia. It provides these users with information to help them take care of their health and give their babies the best possible start in life.
• Conduct bilateral conference on health sector reform. This initiative was first discussed at the 2009 Civil Society Summit. Both countries have placed reform high on their recent political agendas and have agreed that they face a common problem: how to maintain and increase access to health care and improve the quality of care, while controlling escalating health care costs.
• Institute collaborative social marketing research. Numerous problems affect youth and adolescents in both the U.S. and Russia: alcohol and drug addiction, smoking, childhood obesity, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections. How can healthy lifestyle messages be best transmitted to young people in both countries? In order to create and deliver persuasive messages, increase knowledge, and foster meaningful change in behavioral patterns, networks for collaborative social marketing research would help understand how to use social media and apply new technologies most efficiently in this area.
• Create a cross-national web platform. A cross-national web platform can centralize some of the existing web sites and offer an opportunity to share information, experiences, and support across national boundaries. Creation of a trans-national US-Russian web platform will allow communities of people to come together and benefit from “the wisdom of the crowd,” forming bilateral support groups and channels for sharing information and experiences.
• Support medical research. Collaborative medical research is one of the focal points of the Public Health Group of the governmental Bilateral Presidential Commission and that significant progress has already been achieved in this area and evidence-based approached should be supported.
Higher Education
• Develop international collaborative service learning projects. Establish a framework to promote best methods in in-service learning, facilitate reciprocal and/or third-country collaborative projects between Russian and US institutions and community partners, and use meetings, websites, social networking tools and distance learning technology, to facilitate communication and collaboration by teams of students, faculty, administrators and community leaders.
• Conduct research and analysis of recent dual degree US/Russia programs. Evaluate the efficacy and potential scalability of such projects. Identify model projects of joint collaboration. Promote most effective practices. Engage with potential partners.
• Develop a clearinghouse website outlining US/Russian educational programs (dual degrees, joint research projects, educational exchanges etc.), potentially in collaboration with other organizations.
Primary and Secondary Education and Youth
• Promote the concept of global citizenship and helping more conservative actors in both countries feel that being a good global citizen is not detrimental to national identity.
• Help to invest and support the matchmaking between schools and youth groups. There is interest, but not everyone knows where to go to get started.
• Use other related policy initiatives. For example, this year is the Year of the Teacher in Russia and starting in a few months is the UN’s International Year of Youth as a platform to promote global citizenship and connectedness.
• Create a “cookbook” guide to 1) engage beginners in global citizenship projects and make it easier to start; 2) provide useful links/resources for those who would like to go further and engage in more advanced projects; 3) share already existing successful models of both school and community projects.
• Use existing social networks (Facebook, Vkontakte – Russian social networking site, LinkedIn, etc.) to mainstream the global citizenship concept, push the project ideas and facilitate dialogue among participants as opposed to creating new platforms from scratch.
• Use existing contacts – start with survey respondents and further expand the working group; organize both virtual and in-person events to match potential partners.
• Organize technology road shows with Russian/American participants demonstrating the most successful models and sharing expertise with those who are interested in adopting these models.
• Participate in some of the planned events: International Education Week, virtual faculty meeting (in Russia), events as part of the Year of the Teacher in Russia.
PLENARY SESSION 2
Community Development
• Organize a conference on new models of public-private-civil society collaboration in community development. This would be held in Russa with virtual participation from U.S., Canada, and U.K.
• Develop a platform for an online community of practice. The community development conference materials would be used as the starting point for ongoing discussions, which would allow for direct peer-to-peer exchanges in experiences and ideas as well as identification of thought leaders and practices for future conferences and innovation.
• Promote NGO/CSO organizational development by publishing resource materials. These should include internal capacity building models and practices as well as external (community-wide) capacity building through collaboration and partnering with private sector firms and public agencies.
Anti-corruption and Institutional Integrity
• Adoption by Russia and the United States of a bilateral investment treaty that prohibits extortion, bribery, and other forms of corruption, and that enhances transparency. Addressing these concerns is essential to fostering foreign investment and economic growth.
• Create an “Article 13” Alliance under the UN Convention Against corruption in order to monitor corruption and improvements in governance in both nations. Under this alliance, civil society groups are called upon to work together to hold business and government accountable to higher standards of transparency and integrity.
Transparency in Government
• Provide expertise for the government in the area of freedom of information and transparency implementation. Starting from our planned freedom of information work in Armenia in July 2010, the National Security Archive and the Institute of Information Freedom Development would draft a joint universal methodology for evaluating government openness, which could be applied to Russia, United States and internationally.
• Educate citizens about the law on freedom of information and their rights under this law. Collect and evaluate best practices internationally and disseminate information about them in Russia and the U.S. via the website www.freedominfo.org. Design a plan of training seminars and clinics for citizens, government officials and judges in Russia based on the experience of previous work by the IIFD in Russia and by the NSA in Mexico.
New Media
• Protect the ability to talk. It is essential to suppress state and non-state actors who attempt to silence individuals, institutions and websites.
• Improve the capacity to check facts. Training, public outreach and utilization of such mechanisms as www.snoops.com and www.politifact.org amplifies accuracy in public discourse and promotes improved content delivery.
• Identify and feature diversity. Steps are required to promote underrepresented linguistic minorities, including the use of technical platforms such as Global Voices, which will increase the quality of discourse.
• Share conversations with the wider world. Combine machine and distributed human translation–explore crowd-sourcing solutions to translation to reach broader audiences.
PLENARY SESSION 3
Human Rights and Law
• Reform the prison system. The Russian government has announced plans for ambitious reform of the penitentiary system. US experiences in managing and reforming its penitentiary system, both negative and positive, could be quite instrumental for designing Russian prison reform.
• Reform the police. Russian leadership has recognized the need for a fast and fundamental reform, and the first steps have already taken place. Russian NGOs have formed a coalition for the police reform and is trying to engage in dialogue with the government. US experience in reforming its own police system in 1960s and addressing corruption and brutality in the police force would be quite useful for Russian partners.
• Reform the judiciary. A fair, effective and efficient justice system is a prerequisite to democracy and to making human rights and equal justice a reality throughout the Russian Federation, as mandated in the Russian Constitution. Civil society and human rights groups have a pivotal role to play.
• Combat hate crime. The problem of violent hate crimes is very relevant for both countries. Combating hate crimes requires firm political will and leadership, a strong law enforcement response, and substantial cooperation with civil society.
• Shift the security paradigm in fighting terrorism and insurgency from a focus on the military to an emphasis on human security. One of the most successful innovations we have seen in the defense of human rights has been the alliance formed in the United States between human rights groups and retired military officers to persuade Americans that torture and unlawful detention are not only wrong but harmful to the fight against terrorism. More broadly, for pragmatic reasons, many military leaders in the United States have come to believe that winning wars against terrorists and insurgents depends on protecting civilians from violence and abuse and building legitimate institutions of government.
Child Protection
• Develop online consultations in which specialists in Russia and the US can discuss specifics, e.g. protection of children’s rights and medical consultations. Such US-Russia consultations would bring the specialists together via video-conferencing and online dialogue with particular emphasis on including distant regions of Russia such as Siberia and the Far East.
• Conduct joint research. There is a practice of joint university-based research, but this should also include practitioners’ research and Academic Center research as well as joint publications for distribution to the general public.
• Support training platforms such as study tours for practitioners. It would be useful to have exchange visits for 3-4 weeks, during which Russian specialists could visit different centers and shadow US colleagues to see how US NGOs collaborate with the government and other NGOs. The Russian delegation should include members of regional governments, officials of various government agencies, and practitioners, especially from NGOs. If the delegation is mixed, dialogue among them is inevitable, which will support NGO sustainability in Russia.
Migration and Combating Human Trafficking
• Institutionalize regular video conferencing and information sharing among stakeholders.
• Establish an international central phone number, usable on cell phones and coupled with an education campaign so that a trafficked person in a destination country can alert authorities and learn of rights in the destination country. The same was recommended for women subjected to domestic violence.
• Develop public outreach strategies. Posters, billboards to advertising help lines are needed in both countries. In Russia, brochures must include a designated space for NGOs to include numbers of other organizations where help can be found and resources leveraged. For example, trafficking and domestic violence can be added to “know your rights” campaigns.
See also:
* Russian and American Civil Society Leaders Debate Common Concerns
* Technology Experts and Civil Society Leaders Share Innovations
child protection