Ecuador : Indicators

The Council of Citizen’s Participation (CPC) is an autonomous body, created by the Constitution (2008), which recognises the right to consultation in its article 398. The role of the CPC is to facilitate processes between the state and civil society for participation, social monitoring and the fight against corruption. It forms part of one of the functions of the state of Transparency and Social Monitoring.

A variety of mechanisms are recognised for citizens’ participation initiatives, including citizen review boards, observatories, popular councils and citizens’ networks. In addition, the Law on Citizens’ Participation (art. 77) stipulates the Principle of the “Empty Chair”, which grants citizens the right to participate with voting rights in the sessions of autonomous governments. The National Assembly of Ecuador promotes the “Mobile Assembly bus”, which travels around the country and is a mechanism allowing citizens to consult, give an opinion or send proposals for laws, reforms and oversight directly to a specific member of the Assembly.

Finally, the law on environmental management sets out the principles and guidelines for environmental policy; it determines the obligations, responsibilities, levels of participation of the public and private sectors in environmental management and indicates the allowable limits, controls and penalties applied in these matters (Codified Environmental Management Law, 2004). This law has a “regulation on participation established for environmental management law” (http://www.lexis.com.ec/webtools/esilecpro/FullDocumentVisualizer/FullDocumentVisualizer.aspx?id=AMBIENTE-REGLAMENTO_DE_PARTICIPACION_ESTABLECIDOS_EN_LEY_DE_GESTION_AMBIENTAL) which, amongst other aspects, stipulates the scope of the participation, the time period, the mechanisms, the necessary information and origin of the participation, the receipt of criteria, how they are systematised, etc.

With regard to REDD + processes, the Under-Secretary of Climate Change has set up two bodies for participation of civil society and indigenous peoples and nationalities: the Monitoring Committee of UN REDD + and the National Committee of Social and Environmental Standards for REDD +. These two bodies are made up of representatives of civil society groups. The final report of those processes is expected to give an account of how the committee members have disseminated the information with their constituents and how the committee has collected and incorporated their opinions. Currently, the Undersecretary of Climate Change is working on a proposal for the creation of a single and formal platform of participation, dialogue and involvement for all processes related to REDD+. In addition, Ecuador is a pilot country for the implementation of Participatory Governance Assessment (PGA) which is an initiative of the UN-REDD programme to assess issues related to participation and effective involvement of all stakeholders