The Advisory Committee to the Global Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments convened its first plenary meeting at UNDP Headquarters in New-York, on 29 November 2010.

 

The Advisory Committee is an independent multi-stakeholder panel composed of senior members from academia, civil society and social movements from all world regions, with diverse types of expertise related to governance assessments (see the list of members below). The purpose of the Advisory Committee is to draw from the knowledge and experience of its members to: (a) Advise the GAP team in the areas of programme development, annual priorities and developing the conceptual framework; (b) Help identify the best practices as well as knowledge-networks that can help strengthen UNDP’s democratic governance assessment work; (c) Bring in multi-stakeholder perspectives from different regions, sectors and areas of expertise to help UNDP shape its present and future work; and (d) Provide contextual inputs and strategic information to ensure that governance assessment work is effective.

 

In this initial meeting, the key areas of UNDP’s governance assessment work and the Global Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments were presented to the Committee, who were invited to provide feedback and advice on certain key aspects of this work. The Committee members also participated in the one day Seminar on “Democratic Governance Assessments for Human Development” organized at the UNDP Learning Resource Centre in New York on 30 November.

 

• Ms. Marie-Angelique Savané (Senegal):Civil society activist and former chair of NEPAD’s Africa Peer Review Mechanism-APRM Panel of Eminent Persons
• Mr. Mark Orkin (South Africa):Director-General of the South African government's civil service college, SAMDI. Former Chair of Metagora Steering Committee will represent the Metagora network and strong link to African statistical community on GP Board Atle
• Ms. EnkhetsetsegOchir (Mongolia): Mongolian Ambassador to the UN, former National Project Director for Mongolia Democracy Assessment/ICNRD
• Dr. Praveen Jha (India): Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Senior Economic Advisor to the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability. Involved in developing Budget monitoring and assessments. 
• Mr. Gøran Hyden (USA/Tanzania/Sweden):Professor Emeritus University of Florida- well known for his work on governance and democracy in Africa. Leading researcher and expert on Governance, democratization and practitioner on governance assessments.
• Dr. Bård Anders Andreassen (Norway):Director of the Norwegian Institute for Human Rights at the University of Oslo.  Editor of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights and author of several papers and books  on Human Rights and development
• Mr. Attila Roque (Brazil): Director, INESC Brazil, founding members Social Watch; involved in developing social watch indicators.
• Ms. Marta Lagos (Chile): Executive Director Latinobarometer. Director. MORI. Actively involved in governance assessments for many years.
• Dr. G. Shabbir Cheema (USA):Director, Asia Pacific Governance and Democracy Initiative (AGDI), Senior Fellow, East-west centre, Hawaii University; former director for Governance at UNDP.
• Mr. Atle Sommerfeldt (Norway):Secretary General of the Norwegian Church Aid and leading member of civil society in Norway
• Mr. Adebayo Olukoshi (Nigeria/Senegal):Director of United Nations Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), Dakar, and acting Director of the Africa Governance Institute. Dakar, Senegal