Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy

Since its inception in 2002, the NIMD programme in Guatemala has fostered a national dialogue among political parties. Co-sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), this dialogue has resulted in the Shared National Agenda: an agreement of the political parties on the development of Guatemala. This result has significantly improved the level of confidence and mutual trust among politicians, which was especially important for Guatemala as it emerged from a long period of armed conflict (1960 -1996).

The success of the dialogue at national level has motivated political parties at the departmental level to initiate similar dialogue processes. In support of these initiatives, NIMD in close cooperation with the Netherlands Embassy in Guatemala, has recently selected two departments, Chimaltenango and Alta Verapaz, for a pilot project.

In both areas, local politicians have been meeting regularly over the past year to identify, analyze and discuss the most important social and political issues to be addressed in their departments. In December 2006, political parties in both departments managed to reach an agreement on a Shared Departmental Agenda.

In Chimaltenango the politicians proposed that in the run-up to the elections, which will take place in September 2007, the parties should respect one another and withhold from dirty campaigning in a joint effort to regain voters’ confidence. They also agreed that the Peace Accords, which were signed in 1996 but never fully realized, should now be implemented swiftly and wholeheartedly to give the Guatemalan people back their dignity.

In Alta Verapaz the politicians highlighted the importance of the dialogue process and in particular, the opportunity to reach a consensus. As in Chimaltenango, politicians in Alta Verapaz assigned high priority to the inclusion of social and environmental issues in the effort to achieve long term, sustainable development. In both departments, the political parties committed themselves to implement and comply with the shared departmental agenda, which they hope will also have a bottom-up effect on national party programmes.