the social agenda were that 70% of the HIPC II resources were to be distrib-
uted on the basis of poverty indicators, while 30% of the resources would
be distributed equally among the nine departments, and further down to the
municipalities. Secondly, a consensus was reached on mechanisms for the
distribution of the resources: the municipal governments should be responsi-
ble for the administration of the funds. Thirdly, the stakeholders agreed that
civil society should have the opportunity to control, monitor and evaluate
the use of the resources. This was translated into a “mechanism of social
control” in which the Church would play a major role. Finally, it was agreed
that the National Dialogue would take place every three years.
The economic agenda did not arrive at a national agreement due to
large disagreements amongst the representatives of the private sector. The
political agenda centered around three broad topics: democracy, participa-
tion and transparency, but never made it to the national round table, as it
remained stuck in preparatory seminars. In these seminars representatives of
Jubilee, the Consulta National, political parties and government participated.
No agreement was reached because the proposals presented by civil society -
for example the direct election of independent candidates - were a source of
profound disagreement with and amongst political parties and government
representatives.
2.2. The results: strengths and potential weaknesses
All in all, the National Dialogue has been an important process.
Although the economic and the political tables did not produce any national
agreements, important results came out of the participatory process in the
social agenda.
Two concrete institutional arrangements resulted from the Dialogue.
The first one is the Law of National Dialogue (Ley del Dialogo Nacional).
The law stipulates that the consultation exercise as implemented for getting
access to the HIPC II resources is to be repeated every three years. The goal
is to involve the municipalities in the further implementation, the monitoring
and the evaluation of the PRSP. The second concrete result is the agreement
to install a National Mechanism of Social Control (Mecanismo National de
Control Social), which consists of nine Departmental Mechanisms of Social
Control. These institutions consist of civil society actors and they will super-
vise the local and the national level on the use of the HIPC II resources. The
Church will play a coordinating role in this mechanism.
These direct results are important because they stipulate on paper
that from now on municipalities will gain more influence regarding pro-
poor development policies and more resources to combat poverty. At the
same time, municipalities will get direct access to the HIPC II resources.
For some municipalities this implies a doubling or more of their resources.
These resources have to be exclusively destined to combating poverty at the
IDPM-UA Discussion Paper 2002-05 • 11