Enhancing Participatory Democracy Approach in Northeast Syria in Relation to the Constitutional Process - Conference

2020-01-30

On January 26, 2020, ASO Center for Consultancy and Strategic Studies, held a conference entitled "Enhancing Participatory Democracy Approach in Northeast Syria in Relation to the Constitutional Process", in the presence of representatives of the Self-Administration, political parties, civil society organizations, and independent politicians.
ASO Center started the conference with a welcome speech, followed by the presentation of the project manager regarding the stages of the project, then a discussion session including the following axes followed:
-Presenting the constitutional process (intervention from a representative of civil society).
-International assurances for the protection of rights and freedoms (intervention from Yezidi and Christian constituents' representatives).
-The aspirations of various Syrian components regarding the constitutional process (representative from the Arab component).
-The position of the Kurdish component in the constitutional process (self-administration representatives).
Participants were given the opportunity to discuss and make their own observations, where three groups of attendees were formed to discuss the following:
- Future state's identity,
- Freedoms and rights,
- State institutions relations with each other.
At the end of the conference, a committee was formed to formulate the final statement of the conference, and prepare it based on the proposals and recommendations to be submitted by the United Nations to the constitutional committee charged to formulate the constitution.
It is worth mentioning that the project has already started preparing preliminary study, which included conducting focused group discussions and individual interviews with political, legal and media figures, civil and human rights activists, in Al-Hasakah, Der Ezzor, Al-Raqqa, and Aleppo governates. After that, representatives were chosen from these areas to be qualified in consecutive dialogue sessions within the project after attending training workshop on facilitation tools and methods in Amuda to gain flexibility and be confident.
In aggregation with this, a committee of legal experts has been formed in Erbil and Qamishli, as well as a set of axes to be discussed in the dialogue sessions, in preparation for the recommendations to be submitted to the constitutional committee at the end of the project.
Based on the axes established by the Committee, with the help of trainees' teams in the workshops organized in Amuda, dialogue sessions were implemented in the previously mentioned governorates. In addition, a set of recommendations were formed regarding constitutional principles.
Then, ASO Center launched an advocacy campaign to support the recommendations which were formed during these sessions, where the focus was on participatory democracy and community participation, as a fundamental prerequisite for the political process success, achieving social justice, and ensuring the rights of national and religious minorities.
Last but not least, ASO Center has accomplished one of its aspirational goals; to hold an important national conference, on promoting participatory democracy in Northeastern Syria, within its short-term journey.