concept

We understand governance as an art of social fabric, which seeks to articulate and harmonize interests between actors in a territory towards a common beneficial objective, including as an actor the territory itself, respecting its own voice and needs. In practice, it is a constant exercise of ethics and commitment, which we define as the product of real experience and field learning.

ETHICS.  Three elements integrate the ethics of governance:

1. Knowledge: any opinion, action or decision, based on the best available knowledge on the subject under discussion.
2. Praxis: knowledge needs to be put into practice, otherwise it is of little use.
3. Human values: always present in any debate, to develop capacity to build on differences.

COMMITMENT.  Four elements are integrated into the commitment of governance, easily remembered with the acronym CEPA:

1. Communication: informing and communicating to society and actors about efforts in the territory.
2. Education: with the responsibility to train better citizens.
3. Awareness: to facilitate understanding, develop sensitivity and translate it into coherence.
4. Participation: to intervene in debates and decision making.

Foundation Montecito is an influential actor in the region. As part of our main activities, we exercise a role in managing, facilitating and helping to strengthen governance, in development of our mission objective.

concrete actions in
governance

Foundation Montecito takes the following interconnected actions in governance

causa tota

The main governance exercise of our organization, for the benefit of the Lake Tota basin. Several external projects have been created with this objective:

• Website, Causa Tota (CT): See here.
  
• CT blog, since 2011: See here.
  
• Mocilato, group on FB: See here.
  
• Elements of the process: See here.
  
• Our projects: See here.

Strategies and actions

A constant and varied exercise of actions for the benefit of Lake Tota. Certain strategies have marked important milestones in the objective:

• Gray Globe of Wetlands (2012): See here.
• Naked Lake Tota: See here.
• Top100 and Top3 Green Destination: See here.
• Veeduría Lago de Tota: See here.
• Council of Cuenca LT: See here and here.
• Water Fund LT (preliminary): See here.

To learn more about the general actions of our NGO, which strengthen governance in the region: See here.

communications

We maintain constant informative and reflective communications. Here we cite our main platforms:

• NGO blog: See here.
• NGO social networks:​​

• Director's Blog (EcoSentir): See here.
• Radio Program 3 + 4 = 10: See here.
• Ojito de Agua, Environmental Press: See here.
• Columnists, Causa Tota: See here.

• Reflection: 
  In regards to governance and pluralism, here is a reflection from our director, written in May, 2018 and titled: 
  Pluralist Governance - How to harmonize interests? (Lake Tota, COL) | Visible from this link.