FOCO - Citizen’s Forum of Participation for Justice and Human Rights- was created in 1999 as an initiative of SAPRIN (Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network) .  It was designed as a space for the convergence of many social organisations, with the purpose of promoting citizen participation in the development of public policies so that they serve the interests and well-being of local populations

Since then, FOCO has constituted a plural and democratic space, committed to the construction of a fair, participatory and cohesive society and open to the initiatives of the public and of social organizations. FOCO´s main purposes are the promotion and the defence of the Human Rights proclaimed and established by the United Nations and by the Interamerican System of Human Rights. After several years of work, the members of FOCO created INPADE (Institute for Participation and Development) with the intention of institutionalizing their work, to guarantee the regularity of the activities and to assume the legal representation in order to formally act with the national and international organisms and institutions. Consequently, FOCO has been transformed into a program of INPADE, which assumes its legal representation. 

FOCO participates in different alliances and international networks that share its aims and that reject the globalisation model encouraged by the large international corporations. It works towards a globalisation model oriented by the values of justice and solidarity on behalf of populations worldwide, especially those of less favoured countries and social groups who have not benefited from the scientific, technological and productive advances of the last decades. In that sense, FOCO actively supports the peoples and social movements that fight for a construction of a just international order and a world society based on fundamental values such as liberty, equality, solidarity, freedom and justice.

FOCO is a member of the SAPRIN International Network and participates actively in the Global Network and in internationally recognized organizations such as SOLIDAR and IFWEA (International Federation of Workers’ Education Associations).  Furthermore, FOCO was recently incorporated into the International Network for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (Red-ESCR). FOCO also participates in the Hemispheric Social Alliance and, in Argentina, is member of the Civil Society Consultative Council of the Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.