At the first meeting of the Community of Democracies in June 2000 in Warsaw, Poland, the more than 100 participating governments pledged to form coalitions and caucuses in existing international and regional institutions to support resolutions and other international activities aimed at the promotion of democratic governance.

In October that same year, the first effort was made at the United Nations (UN) to convene a gathering of states participating in the Community of Democracies (CD) process. Some sixty states sent representatives to the meeting. Later that year, with the active support of those states, the UN General Assembly approved a landmark Resolution on Promoting and Consolidating Democracy.

Building on this momentum, the Democracy Coalition Project, Freedom House and the Transnational Radical Party, and other NGOs formed a coalition and began to urge the formal creation of a Democracy Caucus at the UN. Through direct appeals to the CD Convening Group and other official bodies, as well as outreach to other interested civil society groups, parliamentarians and the media, the Campaign for a UN Democracy Caucus has made significant progress toward its goals. Notably, in September 2004, the first formal meeting of the Democracy Caucus’s foreign ministers, chaired by Chile, was held at the UN General Assembly, followed by first-ever meetings of the permanent representative and expert staff of the Democracy Caucus members.

For more information please visit: www.democracycaucus.net

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