{"id":44874,"date":"2022-02-16T10:30:20","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T18:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=44874"},"modified":"2022-02-16T10:30:20","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T18:30:20","slug":"secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-virtual-summit-for-democracy-civil-society-roundtable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=44874","title":{"rendered":"Secretary Antony J. Blinken At Virtual Summit for Democracy Civil Society Roundtable"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
02\/16\/2022 12:02 PM EST<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State<\/p>\n

Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

UNDER SECRETARY ZEYA:<\/b>\u00a0 Good morning and welcome, everyone.\u00a0 It\u2019s great to see you all again, and I hope your 2022 is off to a healthy and strong start.\u00a0 For my part, I want to start with a thank you.<\/p>\n

As some of our most valued thinkers and doers, we greatly appreciate your time and commitment and the ideas and feedback that we used from you to strengthen the summit agenda.\u00a0 We incorporated many of your recommendations, and we hope you saw those reflected in our December event.\u00a0 Some of what the Secretary will lay out today for the Year of Action may also sound familiar; the concept of establishing democracy cohorts, for example, comes directly from all of you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m excited to use this call today to pick up our conversation from last year.\u00a0 As we move into the Year of Action, we look forward to regular consultations with civil society.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t a one-way conversation, either.\u00a0 We plan to both listen and share, and work in partnership with civil society to achieve our shared summit goals this year.\u00a0 The main goal in the Year of Action is to sustain the summit\u2019s momentum and land concrete results that shore up democracies around the world, including our own; push back against the raw deal of authoritarianism; defend and promote respect for human rights; and combat corruption.\u00a0 And at a time when all indicators flag continued democratic backsliding, we cannot achieve our summit goals without a meaningful partnership with civil society.\u00a0 So, I thank you all for your leadership.<\/p>\n

Today we\u2019re honored to be joined by Secretary Blinken, and thank you for being with us today.\u00a0 I\u2019m also delighted to welcome Erin Barclay, our coordinator for global democratic renewal, who will moderate today\u2019s Q&A.\u00a0 And as the Secretary, given the pace of world events, has been called away to a meeting at the White House, his time with us is a bit compressed.\u00a0 I want to hand the floor to him, and thank you, sir, for your leadership.<\/p>\n

SECRETARY BLINKEN:<\/strong>\u00a0 Uzra, thank you so much.\u00a0 Erin, thank you as well.\u00a0 And it\u2019s great to see everyone on the screen.<\/p>\n

Yes.\u00a0 I was looking forward to actually spending a bit of time this morning.\u00a0 Unfortunately, a larger force, as in the President, has called me over to a meeting, so I want to at least spend the top of this meeting with you.\u00a0 And I\u2019m going to make sure that I hear from both Uzra and Erin exactly what was said during the meeting so that I can factor that in.\u00a0 But let me just say a few words, if I can, at the outset and see if we have any time for questions before I get pulled over down the street.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, thank you for being here today.\u00a0 But thank you even more for being partners in this effort, the Democracy Summit, everything that is following from it in this Year of Action, and of course for, irrespective of that, the vital work that each and every one of you is doing every single day to advance democracy and human rights.\u00a0 We really did want to spend some time, again, hearing from you as we continue to inform our own efforts, we continue to carry forward what was started with the Democracy Summit.\u00a0 You know that the basic aim of the summit was to start to rally countries to try to make concrete commitments to strengthen their own democracies and to help other democracies deliver for the people that they\u2019re supposed to serve.\u00a0 And then, having made those commitments, we are now in what we\u2019ve been calling a Year of Action, where we try to turn commitments into real change.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what this year is all about.<\/p>\n

And the \u201cwe\u201d includes all of us with a stake in advancing democracy and human rights, not only governments but the private sector, individual citizens, and, of course, civil society organizations.\u00a0 Earlier this week we posted online the voluntary commitments that countries made at the summit.\u00a0 For example, Paraguay will create an interagency task force to fight money laundering; Micronesia will put forward an access to information law; Luxembourg will create a senior-level post for advancing racial equity and diversity, to name just a few of the pledges.\u00a0 Putting the commitments out there for all to see is a key part of holding governments, including our own, accountable.\u00a0 And I have no doubt that you will all help do that.<\/p>\n

Many countries are starting to follow through on commitments.\u00a0 As we meet here today, Ghana and Norway are co-chairing the Global Disability Summit.\u00a0 Just last week the Estonians convened the Global Conference on Media Freedom.\u00a0 Both were pledges made at the Summit for Democracy.<\/p>\n

Meetings like these are not only valuable for sharing our individual efforts, they offer a chance to team up across borders and across sectors.\u00a0 In Tallinn, for example, the U.S. delegation that Uzra led encouraged others to join us in launching a new journalism protection platform to help reporters in hostile press environments.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got tools like legal aid, training on digital and physical security, very practical things that we hope will actually advance the safety and security of journalists, and protect them when they\u2019re under threat.<\/p>\n

This assistance is obviously more important than ever.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen repressive laws multiply, threats and attacks on journalists increase across the globe.\u00a0 And we all are joined by the shared conviction that a free media is indispensable to keeping people informed, to holding governments accountable, to shining a spotlight on issues that otherwise wouldn\u2019t get a lot of public attention.\u00a0 These are all core elements of a healthy democracy.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we\u2019ve made supporting independent, free public media one of our priorities for this year.<\/p>\n

Next week we\u2019re also going to release the U.S. Government\u2019s plan of action for making meaningful progress on our commitments and helping other governments meet theirs.\u00a0 These goals are mutually reinforcing because if we\u2019re going to address many of the challenges that democracies face, from inequity to corruption to efforts by authoritarian governments to sow distrust in free and open societies, we\u2019ve got to have strong democratic partners by our side.\u00a0 We are absolutely convinced, as we approach virtually everything we\u2019re doing around the world, that we\u2019re stronger and more effective when we\u2019re partnering with others than when we\u2019re doing things alone.<\/p>\n

We need civil society engaged in every part of the action plan.\u00a0 It\u2019s as simple as that.\u00a0 But if I could, let me just highlight three parts of the plan where I think your leadership is especially important.<\/p>\n

First, on your recommendation and as Uzra mentioned, we will create a series of groups that we\u2019re calling democracy cohorts which will bring together representatives of government, civil society, philanthropy, and the private sector around priority themes.\u00a0 The cohorts will work to implement and expand on key commitments related to their theme as well as monitor progress, which is so critical.\u00a0 They\u2019ll forge new connections among those working on the issue.\u00a0 The aim is for each cohort to be co-led by summit partners in government and civil society, and we really hope your institutions will consider playing a leading role.<\/p>\n

To give just one example, given the President\u2019s strong commitment to fighting corruption, which was one of the key pillars of the summit, the United States will co-lead a cohort focused on curbing the flow of illicit money.\u00a0 The group will focus on issues like improving information gathering and sharing, strengthening prevention measures like enhancing transparency in real estate transactions, and broadening tools for recovering stolen assets.<\/p>\n

Second, we will also restart our regular consultations with civil society on a range of key summit topics.\u00a0 These consultations will complement the work of the cohorts by allowing us to hear from a broader cross-section of nongovernmental organizations on a wide range of issues, and what we learn will in turn help inform the broader process to shape summit number two.<\/p>\n

Third, I\u2019ve instructed our embassies in every one of the countries that participated in the summit to make it a part of their job to help drive progress on the commitments that were made.\u00a0 What that means is that our posts will regularly engage with civil society organizations in country to get their take on where governments are moving forward, where they\u2019re falling back or falling short, as well as what the United States can do to help.\u00a0 And it means that our diplomats at every level, on every relevant issue, will regularly raise summit pledges with their counterparts and encourage them to work with partners outside of government to deliver on those commitments.<\/p>\n

So all three of these efforts are intended to be responsive to something that we heard from you, which is that more regular, inclusive consultation with civil society is essential.\u00a0 So I want you to know that we\u2019re listening and we\u2019re acting on what we\u2019re hearing.<\/p>\n

In closing, let me again simply say thank you.\u00a0 We talk a lot about what makes democracy unique, why it\u2019s worth fighting for, and a big part of that is that democracy is the only system that actually empowers people to improve on what we have, to fix our flaws, to make things better, a little bit more just, a little bit more equitable.\u00a0 The organizations and institutions that you\u2019re leading, you are the primary drivers of that enduring process of self-government.\u00a0 So, on behalf of all of us, everyone involved in this effort, thank you, thank you, thank you for your hard work.\u00a0 Thank you for your service.\u00a0 Thank you for being champions of democracy at a time when democracy really needs those champions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

02\/16\/2022 12:02 PM EST   Antony...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44875,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44874\/revisions\/44875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}