Strengthening Democracy and Citizen Participation

Innovation for Change (I4C) is a global network of people and organizations who connect, partner, and learn together to defend and strengthen civic space and democracy and overcome restrictions to our fundamental freedoms of assembly, association, and expression. We are a community-led network inspired by ideas, methods, and technologies from across different sectors

The Latin American & the Caribbean (LAC) Hub is organizing an in-person event to shape formal discussion, hear the voices of the region, help to do advocacy and reflect on the main challenges that Democracy is facing in the region today. The event will be organized around the following formats: Sharing data on the state of democracy in the region, panels with keynote speakers and sharing good practices and successful cases.

The main topics addressed will be:
1. The reduction of civic space in the region. The work of CSOs in promoting democracy and defending civic space. Identifying the main threats to democracy
2. Generating advocacy to defend the enabling environment
3. Civil society in the digital age: Fighting misinformation in LAC and generating digital empowerment in the region for activism
4. The future of Democracy: new agendas, new actors and the role of innovation in social change.
5. Partnerships for Democracy: a showcase of successful partnerships cases with the private sector and international cooperation in the region

Call to action: As a result of what is discussed and shared during the event, we will prepare a Draft Declaration of the Democracy Summit, that will be circulated to the participants after the event for validation and feedback, and the final text will be shared by all for advocacy purposes.