All Regions | DemocracyWorks: A Blog of the National Democratic Institute

Building International Standards for Parliamentary Ethics

Photo Credit: Dan Mason

While the international community of parliaments and parliamentary support organizations has successfully developed international standards or benchmarks for the institution of parliament, far less attention has been dedicated to developing standards for the ethical conduct of individual members. To help fill this gap and to start a global conversation, members of the Open Government Partnership’s Legislative Openness Working Group have drafted Common Ethical Principles for Members of Parliament.

Job Opportunity: Chief Information Officer

Sudanese citizens gather around NDI-distributed radios in the village of Leer to listen to the Let’s Talk program. NDI distributed thousands of wind-up and solar-powered blue radios in Sudan as part of a two-year program that brought dialogue about national issues to isolated communities.

NDI provides technology services to our democracy programs and political partners around the world, and support to our employees and field offices in 60 countries. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) provides leadership, directs technology strategy and is responsible for overall management of all technology support and programs. The CIO also is responsible for establishing strategic partnerships, identifying opportunities to secure program funding and leading the institute’s information security efforts. NDI is a global organization running production business systems and regularly conducting program activities abroad during non-US business hours, thus this job requires the team leader to be accessible at any time as needed (including evenings and weekends).

Lifting the Voices of Internally Displaced People

Refugee and asylum seeker rights rally in Melbourne, Australia. Credit: John Englart (Takver)

Nearly 60 million people around the world are refugees -- either displaced within the borders of their own country or living in countries not their own, according to a new UN study. Just this year, there were 14 million new internally displaced people, which is an all-time high.

World Refugee Day, which will be observed tomorrow, brings attention to this growing global crisis. While discussions about internally displaced persons (IDPs) often focus on immediate needs, such as food, medical aid and shelter, another need should not be overlooked: democratic participation.

Testing City Limits: Women and Urban Governance

Shari Bryan speaks on a panel on urbanization and the challenges of local government and citizen engagement in New Delhi, March 2015.

Cities, for the first time in history, are now home to more than 50 percent of the world’s population. This is an incredible demographic shift, and in their rise to prominence, urban centers have begun to shape national and global-level discussions. After all, there are now megacities in Asia and Latin America with larger populations than some European countries. These megacities drive more than 70 percent of the world’s economic activity, and some of their local governments are acting across national borders to strike their own trade deals and address climate change issues.

The Open Data Community Comes Together to Talk Data, Power, Politics

The Third International Open Data Conference in Ottawa last week brought together more than 1,000 open data advocates from a diverse array of countries and professional backgrounds for discussions intended to add transparency to government Compared with the First International Open Data Conference -- a small gathering of technologists at the World Bank in 2010 -- the event’s growth constituted a clear statement that open data is here to stay and the global community of advocates is growing.

Four New Resources for Supporting Citizen Participation

Each week, NDI’s Citizen Participation team sends materials to staff around the world that offer practical tools and guiding concepts to consider in their programming. In a rapidly changing world, new ideas and strategies are constantly being developed by practitioners, funders and other organizations. By sharing a digest of our “Citizen Participation Weekly Resource,” we hope to highlight the most innovative and effective knowledge-based approaches to making democracy work.

Initiative Aims to Ensure Citizen Groups have Access to Election Data

NDI is excited to announce the launch of the Open Election Data Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to ensure that citizen groups have access to election data that can give a true picture of an election process, including how candidates are certified, how and which voters are registered, what happens on election day, whether results are accurate and how complaints are resolved.

The Open Election Data Initiative, openelectiondata.net, adapts open data principles that are designed to enhance government transparency in other areas, such as service delivery, to elections. The initiative encourages governments to be more accountable and citizens to take a more active participatory role. While primarily geared toward civil society -- including election monitoring organizations, many of which are partners of NDI -- the initiative can also inform the efforts of political parties, election management bodies and other actors concerned with electoral integrity.

A Student's Guide to NDI.org and DemWorks.org

Through the website of the National Democratic Institute NDI website, NDI.org, students have access to handbooks on political participation, public opinion polls from many countries, a global elections calendar, and press releases and stories about the Institute’s work around the world. In the publications section students can search by country or topic, such as citizen participation, debate, technology and marginalized groups.

Going to the International Open Data Conference? Come say hello to NDI

This week, NDI joins thousands of open government advocates, civic hackers, policymakers and journalists in attending the 3rd Annual International Open Data Conference (IODC) in Ottawa, Canada. It is going to be a week of workshops and discussions exploring open data issues and strengthening coordination among open data initiatives. Throughout the week, NDI will be hosting or participating in several events where we'll address how citizens can use data to make government more transparent and accountable. Whether your interests are in opening up election data or in promoting a parliamentary code of conduct, we'd like to talk to you at these events.

They Say ‘Why Women’s Political Empowerment?’ and I say ‘What Else?’

Credit: Davit Tomadzea

Georgia lags behind most European countries when it comes to women’s political participation. Only 12 percent of the members of the parliament are women and only 11 percent of those in local councils are women. That is a just a 5 percent and 1 percent improvement respectively compared to parliamentary and local council elections in 2008 and 2010 respectively. Out of 12 directly elected mayors of self-governing cities, not one is a women and all 63 directly elected governors are men. Women make up only 17 percent of the Cabinet of Ministers.

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