On September 19th, the Community of Democracies, International IDEA, the Organization of American States and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) held the 8th High Level Meeting of the Inter-Regional Dialogue on Democracy (IRDD), and the International Conference on “Achieving Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions: The Role of Global and Regional Intergovernmental Organizations and Civil Society Actors”.

The High-Level Meeting of the IRDD brought together the global and regional organizations that are partners of this platform at the highest level to discuss the role of multilateralism, through global and regional arrangements, in the advancement of democracy, peace and development in the framework of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, with a particular focus on SDG 16+ and SDG 17; and to discuss and propose policy recommendations for the way forward.

The International Conference gathered senior representatives and experts from global and regional organizations, representatives of civil society organizations and independent experts to analyze existing mechanisms of interaction and to develop recommendations on how to improve cooperation among different stakeholders to promote democracy and development, improve conflict prevention and peacebuilding efforts.

Both, the 8^th High Level Meeting of the IRDD and the International Conference gathered high-level representatives of international and regional organizations, as well as civil society organizations, including:

• Kevin Casas-Zamora, Secretary-General of International IDEA
• Luis Almagro, Secretary-General of the Organization of American States
• Thomas E. Garrett, Secretary-General of the Community of Democracies
• Darynell Rodriguez, Executive Director, Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict
• Henk-Jan Brinkman, Chief, Peacebuilding Strategy and Partnerships Branch, Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, United Nations

The Inter-Regional Dialogue on Democracy (IRDD) is the only platform worldwide that brings together the main global and regional organizations at the political and technical level, and enables the engagement with civil society and other relevant stakeholders to discuss key issues related to democracy, good governance and sustainable development.

International IDEA, the Community of Democracies, the Organization of American States and GPPAC have been working continuously for several years in the creation of knowledge products, analysis and policy recommendations for the advancement of key issues related to democracy, good governance, peacebuilding and conflict resolution. This year, the outcome of this collaboration will be a discussion paper on the “Role of Global and Regional Organizations in advancing Democracy, Peacebuilding and Sustainable Development in the Framework of SDG 16+, which will become available before the end of 2019.