Carter Center Featured Partner: The Open Society Institute

Carter Center Partner in Promoting Inter-American Democratic Charter and Mapping the Media in Latin America
Featured December 2006
 
The Carter Center is excited to be continuing its relationship with The Open Society Institute (OSI), www.soros.org, a private operating and grant making foundation founded by George Soros. Two projects currently have funding from OSI, Promoting the Inter-American Democratic Charter and Mapping the Media in Latin America, which is benefiting from its second grant from OSI under the Center's political finance initiative. Through these programs OSI is continuing its investment in the further development of democracy in Latin America by supporting stronger civil society and government. The Institute shares many goals with the Center in that it aims to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. OSI and the Soros Foundations have given away more than $5 billion to help build open, democratic societies since 1993 and has been a generous supporter of The Carter Center since 1998.

In cooperation with the Organization of American States (OAS), all of whose members signed the Inter-American Democratic Charter in 2001, the Center is working to promote the improvement and use of this document that defines democracy, commits signers to democratic governance, and allows governments to call on the OAS and its member states for assistance in the event of democratic erosion or a full-blown democratic crisis. Read the Charter at www.oas.org/charter/docs/resolution1_en_p4.htm.

With the goals of reducing corruption and promoting equitable access to political information during elections, the University of Calgary, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL) and The Carter Center have partnered in a three-year project to electronically map media access and ownership in a dozen countries. The map  illustrates connections between media ownership and the networks to which they belong, making evident at a glance if some portions of the country are served by only one media owner or by media with the same political affiliation. The map also provides country specific information on regulations governing media use during campaigns, civil society groups' estimates of the value of political advertising, and contact information for community groups working on elections.