The “Regional meeting: From evaluation to action” was held in the city of Lima on 14 and 15 july; and it had the participation of 21 attendees of 15 countries of Latin America and USA. (Annex 1)

The agenda of the meeting (Annex 2) had the objective to provide with a substantive reflection in two processes: 1) To reflect about the future of The Access Initiative (TAI) worldwide, from the point of view of our region. 2) To consolidate a strategy that allows the strengthen of the capacities of advocacy of the national coalitions of The Access Initiative in Latin America.

Considering that TAI is about to celebrate its tenth anniversary, and in order to contribute to the reflection process that the core team has started about the future of TAI, each participant of the event shared their ideas about the level of development of TAI in each of their countries, emphasizing their achievements and challenges to date. Also, about the vocation of the institutions and people to belong to this Network was shared.

In order to present the development of the activities of the partners of the TAI in Latin America, The Access Initiative Mexico systematized the situation of the coalitions of the 14 countries according to a poll that was sent to each organization.

The challenges of the coalitions in national level were analyzed and discussed in work groups and the reflections were presented in plenary.

Finally, the exercise “State specifically t the postulation of the theory of change”, exercise that allowed to reflect about the ideas that the participants have on how to achieve the change.

Also, during the year 2008 the TAI partners of Latin America build a Strategic Plan of Advocacy for Latin America for the next three years, wich objective is to achieve the strengthening of TAI and the partners of the region in order to obtain major advocacy in public politics and in the capability to give more visibility to the thematic that TAI works in each country. Considering this Strategic Plan, as well as the document “Concept Note on Advocay Network” that the World Resources Institute has worked, there were some comments directed to the elaboration of a proposal of an Advocacy Strategy that could be implemented by the partners.

During the event, the presentation of four experiences of incidence was realized:

• CEDA / Coalición Acceso de Ecuador: “ Apoyo e incidencia para la aprobación de la Ley Orgánica de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información Pública en Ecuador”
• FUNPADEM. “Apoyo al proceso de consulta a los pueblos indígenas para propuesta de Ley de Desarrollo Autónomo de los Pueblos Indígenas de Costa Rica”
• SPDA. “Cumplimiento de compromisos ambientales de la empresa Doe Run Perú, responsable del Complejo Metalúrgico de La Oroya”
• Iniciativa de Acceso México. “Principio 10 en Acción. Estrategia de Trabajo en coordinación con autoridades gubernamentales”

In function of the case studies that were presented as successful experiences of advocacy, as well as the presentation of the document Concept Note on Advocacy Network elaborated by the WRI, an collective exercise of discussion of the steps and strategies for advocacy was realized and a document proposal was elaborated in which some useful guidelines were established so that the partners of TAI in Latin America can implement them.

The event also had space for an in-depth review of the operation and utility of the TAI web page in order that the TAI partners take control over it and turn into a key tool of communication for TAI Network.

The meeting concluded with the elaboration of agreements and next commitments to give continuity to the work of the region.