The Club de Madrid is an independent non-profit organization created to promote democracy and change in the international community. Composed of 80 former Presidents and Prime Ministers from 56 countries, the Club de Madrid is the world’s largest forum of former Heads of State and Government.
Among its main goals are the strengthening of democratic institutions and counselling on the resolution of political conflicts in two key areas: democratic leadership and governance and response to crisis and post-crisis situations.
The Club de Madrid works together with governments, inter-governmental organizations, civil society, scholars and representatives from the business world, to encourage dialogue in order to foster social and political change. The Club de Madrid also works on the search for effective methods to provide technical advice and recommendations to transitional nations taking steps to establish democracy.
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There are currently 80 full Members, all of them previous government officials who have full voting rights — including such distinguished members as former Prime Minister of Canada, Kim Campbell, former Soviet Leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of the United States, Bill Clinton, former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson and former President of Spain, Adolfo Suárez. The Club also has institutional Members –those who belong to private and public organizations that share similar democratic objectives, including the Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE), and the Gorbachev Foundation of North America (GNFA), both original sponsors of the founding conference in 2001. Additionally, the Club de Madrid has several honorary Members, such as Kofi Annan and Aung San Suu Kyi; and fellows, who are experts on democratic changeover.
The Club is based in Madrid (Spain), although meetings are held worldwide. Currently Wim Kok, the former Prime Minister of The Netherlands (1994–2002), is the organization's President, and it also has two Vice Presidents: Jennifer Shipley (New Zealand) and César Gaviria (Colombia).
The Club was created from an unprecedented event that was held in October 2001 in Madrid, a four day Conference on Democratic Transition and Consolidation (CDTC). This event brought together 35 world leaders, over 100 esteemed academics and policy specialists from Europe, The Americas, Asia, and Africa to discuss ideas and means of implementation from both objective and subjective perspectives. The conference discussed eight main topics:
The Club de Madrid's primary asset is its membership, which includes more than 80 distinguished former heads of state and government of democratic nations. The comparative advantage of the Club de Madrid is based on the following key assets:
Full Members are members of the Club de Madrid who provide their personal and political experience as former Heads of State and Government. Their appointment, based on a proposal from the Board of Directors, is approved by the General Assembly.
Direct exchanges with current leaders of countries in the process of democratic transition on a peer-to-peer basis, and the Member’s ability to deliver the right message at the right time are two of the major assets of the Club de Madrid. In this sense, the Members of the Club de Madrid can also help focus much needed international attention on targeted countries and leverage the work of other institutions trying to promote democracy.
The Club's members are supported by a network of world-class experts who work together to offer assistance on a range of democratic reform issues. The Club de Madrid is composed of four executive and advisory bodies:
Honorary Members: