OSCE Envoy urges focus on dialogue and NGOs in Central Asia

VIENNA, 11 June 2003 - Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who is Personal Envoy of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office for Central Asia, on Wednesday stressed the importance of strengthening civil society and regional co-operation in helping Central Asian countries with their transition to democracy and the market economy.

In remarks delivered at an OSCE information-sharing meeting on Central Asia, Mr Ahtisaari encouraged the international community to support the development of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which he described as "a necessary underpinning of a democratic society."

The one-day meeting, organized by OSCE Secretary General Jan Kubis, was attended by senior representatives from the five Central Asian governments and major international organizations, including several United Nations bodies, the European Union, the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and NATO.

Mr Ahtisaari's remarks were delivered on his behalf by the OSCE Secretary General as the former Finnish President was unable to attend.

Mr Ahtisaari, who recently visited Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, highlighted the importance of strengthening civil society and regional co-operation.

"The need to support civil society in Central Asia through the creation of non-governmental organizations is obvious," he said.

"NGOs provide a means for organized citizen participation in the changing legal and economic systems and they promote pluralism by channelling the interests of varying cultural and ethnic identities. The continued formation, growth and survival of these [NGOs] is essential if the citizens of countries in transition are to continue to accept the changing role of the state, their own roles as participants in democratic societies and the fluctuations of the market."

Mr Ahtisaari said the transition from the Soviet system to a market economy and democracy had proved to be a longer and more difficult process than expected, but he noted that building democracy in the West had taken centuries.

"Democracy is a culture, not merely an election or institutions," he said.

"One of the most important things for the (Central Asian) countries is to maintain the fairly good level of the education system that they inherited from the Soviet time. This is the only recipe for success in the future. I think that a greater emphasis on the education sector by the participating States and the international community at large would be beneficial."

The CiO's Personal Envoy stressed the need for countries in the region to co-operate effectively with each other, particularly by facilitating freedom of movement.

"Trade contacts, investment opportunities and everyday people-to-people relations are seriously hampered by the decreased number of border crossings," while difficulty in obtaining visas was also a problem, he added.