civil society in the dynamics of democracy building is timidly beginning to be recognised, which is propitious for shaping new forms of relations between state and society.

The practice of democracy is still absent in the region's institutions. The effects of the authoritarian regimes that implemented brutal forms of political repression with the complicity of the dominant sectors are still being felt. The electoral exercise is currently being conceived as the maximum expression of democracy and the spaces opening up for civil society's participation do not yet constitute arenas for dialogue in which the state listens to and considers the opinions and recommendations of civil society on central issues such as poverty and social exclusion. The construction of the rule of law remains a challenge for the region and discrimination against women and ethnic discrimination persists in the exercise of power in all spheres of society.

Our goal is to support processes to strengthen civil society, with a critical but proactive vision that can contribute to the building of a common agenda to achieve greater opposition, dialogue and mobilisation capacity in search of greater social justice in opposition to the impunity and corruption in the region´s governments.

• Challenges.-

PCS Central America and Mexico will gear its work to implementing a coherent regional perspective and strategy to address the political priorities established by the SG and PCS. Through ongoing co-ordination of the programs in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, an effort will be made to link together the vision of work and make it coherent. The capacities of the team to link programs that have an impact on fulfilment of the PCS mission-vision will be strengthened. Civil society's participation, interchanges and insertion in the region will be promoted around the themes of integration that will be implemented in the areas PCS has defined as priorities.

tion and advocate public policy at a regional level as well as around the initiatives the governments are trying to implement, such as Plan Puebla-Panama, the Consultative Group and the Puebla Process, and constitute themselves as a voice on policies that directly affect the PCS target population.

• Sub Programs.-

• Gender and Rural Women.- The PCS gender perspective in the region proposes that the women's organisations see the surmounting of women's subordination described in the context section not only as a goal for each woman but also as a critical element of an authentic democratic political culture that favours the implementation of women's programs and projects through which the differentiated impacts of women's situation and condition can be made visible, emphasising ethno-cultural equity.

• Human Rights.- PCS has been supporting human rights organisations in the region, and has been working with community organisations, co-ordinating bodies and pastorals of the Catholic and Protestant churches, among others. It has not yet, however, been able to articulate a program that more forcefully advocates the demands of civil society with local power and the state.

• Risk Prevention and Mitigation.- In the Central American countries, Hurricane Mitch revealed which populations are the most vulnerable and likely to suffer the consequences of disasters. These populations are precisely those with the least possibilities and capacities to prepare themselves and counteract the damage caused. Given this situation, PCS proposes to strengthen the human and organisational capacities of the uprooted populations most likely to be affected by disasters to reduce their condition of risk, their vulnerability and increase their capacity to respond.

• Migration.- International migrations, although nothing new, are today a massive and world-wide phenomenon that best expresses the North-South issues and where, by forming one of the scenarios of globalisation, great contingents of poor find a way to insert themselves precariously into the residual labour segments of other countries. Although the global economy requires migrations, it is now erecting borders of all kinds to maintain the quota limit necessary for the economies of the wealthy countries. In recent years, the migrations have shown a tendency to grow, diversify and become more complex. Furthermore, projections in the sub-region indicate that this tendency will be accentuated in the future, in an international situation tending toward the militarization and closing of borders in the region.

• Institutional Strengthening.- Between 1998 and 1999, PCS implemented a program in Guatemala to support the undertaking of the social organisations in the country's new socio-political context. It was aimed at PCS counterparts under the name "urgent internal systems", with the support of Inter Pares Canada. This program was considered a first step within a process of more intensive and long-term institutional strengthening (IS) needed to support the meeting of new challenges of transition toward peace and democracy. A review of the experience was conducted at the end of the program and a systematisation was constituted based on recommendations to continue with its implementation.