Our story
CILA was created in 2021 as a collaboration between several non-profit civil society organizations, to generate instances of exchange and connection between participants and beneficiaries of different initiatives to strengthen public management that each organization was carrying out, which contemplated innovation, citizen participation and openness in local governments in Latin America and the Caribbean as central axes.
From this exchange, an event called “CILA 2021: Latin American Cities in Action” was set up, which allowed, in addition to generating an instance of connection and exchange, to establish and strengthen the initially shared diagnosis, which positioned local governments as a strategic axis to restore the link between citizens and institutions and for the construction of solutions in a collaborative and attentive manner to the increasing diversity of communities.
In the following months the CILA event, the collaboration of organizations was expanded, seeking to collaboratively deepen the initiatives, promote learning and extend the reach of shared values.
CILA: International Consortium of Localities in Action, a consortium of civil society organisations formed by Asuntos del Sur, Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente, Extituto de Política Abierta and Instituto Pro Comum, whose joint mission is to promote innovative forms of governance and collective action in cities of the Global South. To achieve this, CILA proposes 3 thematic axes from which to focus its actions:
Our Pillars
Diverse Democracy:
gender, representation and diversity
Seeking to safeguard, promote and strengthen all forms of social and political participation and representation, respecting the diversity of gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation and other forms of expression of the populations present in the Global South.
Environmental Democracy:
Territoriality and sustainability
Seeking to link us to another way of seeing and living in our territories, where the environment is not seen only as a resource, but as an integral part of our existence as a society, generating sustainable and plural local territories, where people’s knowledge and respect for nature are integrated with other ways of living, allowing us to provide better solutions to new problems and build more inclusive societies.
Innovative Democracy:
Technology, participation and Citizen co-construction
We consider that innovative democracies are characterized by the integration of technologies, as well as different mechanisms of participation and citizen co-construction in favour of more and better monitoring, linkage, connection and access to public information on the part of the different actors that make up society.
Civic technologies must be used to facilitate and strengthen the relationship between citizens and governments, safeguard the common good, the role and agency of organized civil society in processes of change, and therefore must respond to challenges that consider security, data protection and the protection of those who use them.
CILA manifest
The Global South is coming together to innovate its practices of democracies, seeking new ways to ensure effective governance and political action.
Who we are
Staff
téchnical Staff
Fiorella Wernicke
Argentinian. Executive Director of Asuntos del Sur and General Coordinator of CILA. She is also Coordinator of Governance, State and Management of the Observatory of Public Policies and Research Professor at the National University of Avellaneda (UNDAV). Advisor to national and subnational public agencies. She holds a degree in International Relations from the Universidad del Salvador (Argentina) with a specialization in International Cooperation from the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina).
Trinidad Reynoso Castillo
Argentinian. Political scientist from the National University of San Martin, with a diploma in socio-environmental policies and activism from the Faculty of Social Sciences – University of Buenos Aires. She is part of the Southern Affairs team in the area of Public Innovation, working with local governments, civil society organizations and academia to promote networks in the cities of the Global South. She has experience as a history teacher in secondary schools and is also an advisor in the Buenos Aires City Legislature.
Vanessa González
Chilean. Project and Research Coordinator at Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente. Political Scientist from the Catholic University of Chile. Degree in Social Sciences from the same university with a major concentration in International Relations, and two minor concentrations in Public Policy and Health Promotion and Care.
Lia Lopes Almeida
Brasileña. Gerenta de Expansión e Impacto en Instituto Procomum.
Licenciada en Derecho y Economía, Especialista en Gestión Pública Legislativa (EACH-USP). Por 15 años, trabajó en el sector público (gobierno de la ciudad de São Paulo), sector privado (bancos) y el tercer sector (OSCs de Mujeres, Jóvenes, Educación y Derechos Humanos). Brindó asesoramiento técnico a organismos internacionales, como OEA (2012) y ONU Mujeres Brasil (2014). Como gerenta de expansión e impacto en Instituto Procomum, coordina proyectos con actuación junto a gobiernos y sociedad civil en Brasil y América Latina.
Viviana Villa
Colombian. Coordinator of monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) at Extituto de Política Abierta. Has a degree in philosophy from the University of Antioquia and a visual anthropologist from the University of Barcelona. Interested in the analysis and representation of information and knowledge in multiple forms: chronicles, audiovisuals, information systems, maps, graphics.
communications staff
Ailen Noriega
Argentina. Coordinadora de comunicaciones en Asuntos del Sur. Licenciada en Ciencias de la Comunicación con orientación en comunitaria por la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Diplomada en Comunicación Interna para la Gestión de las Organizaciones y en Consultoría Organizacional (UBA). Con más de 10 años de experiencia en el fortalecimiento de la comunicación en organizaciones de la sociedad civil.
Nadia Chanquia
Argentina. Community Manager en Asuntos del Sur. Viviendo en Buenos Aires, tiene 27 años finalizando la Licenciatura en Comunicación Social con orientación en opinión pública y publicidad en la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Becaria de la Nueva Escuela de Diseño y Comunicación. Se encuentra vinculada con organizaciones no gubernamentales desde 2017.
Diosceline Camacaro Martínez
Pertenezco a la diáspora venezolana y vivo en Chile.
Directora de comunicaciones en Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente.
Comunicadora social de la UAM, Venezuela, con estudios en educación, mención lengua y literatura del español de la Universidad de Carabobo. Además de escritora y editora. En la actualidad cursa el magíster en Estéticas Americanas en la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Lia Lopes Almeida
Brasileña. Gerenta de Expansión e Impacto en Instituto Procomum.
Licenciada en Derecho y Economía, Especialista en Gestión Pública Legislativa (EACH-USP). Por 15 años, trabajó en el sector público (gobierno de la ciudad de São Paulo), sector privado (bancos) y el tercer sector (OSCs de Mujeres, Jóvenes, Educación y Derechos Humanos). Brindó asesoramiento técnico a organismos internacionales, como OEA (2012) y ONU Mujeres Brasil (2014). Como gerenta de expansión e impacto en Instituto Procomum, coordina proyectos con actuación junto a gobiernos y sociedad civil en Brasil y América Latina.
