Local Spotlight

Every November 18, Haiti commemorates the Battle of Vertières, a pivotal conflict that ended over a century of French colonial rule, paving the way for Haiti to become the world’s first Black republic. This battle is a poignant symbol of resistance and the triumph of freedom over tyranny. 

Against the backdrop of Haiti’s rich history and its current challenges, the International Republican Institute (IRI) is proud to partner with Banj—Haiti’s pioneering co-working space and social entrepreneurship hub. Our partnership, forged during the global pandemic of 2020, required us to unite and innovate through technology and social media. The Community Ideathon Program (Programme d’Ideathon Communautaire – PIC) has equipped nearly 4,000 young Haitians with essential skills in leadership, entrepreneurship, democratic principles, project management, and communication. Additionally, PIC has mentored more than 200 exceptional young leaders, implementing 52 social impact projects in collaboration with local authorities in 21 cities and communes.  

Moreover, by combining IRI’s Ideathon toolkit and leadership methodologies with Banj’s entrepreneurial expertise, PIC encourages these emerging leaders to be inventive and collaborative, working alongside peers, municipal leaders, and the wider community. This initiative not only connects individuals within their communities but also empowers them to learn, make decisions, and experience the essence of democracy firsthand. Here are two examples from this year’s cohort.

Gladimy Jean, Banj coach and program coordinator, describes the ethos of PIC as resonating with the traditional Haitian concept of “konbit”—a collaborative labor system from slavery times where communities unite for a common task. Beyond its practical application, “konbit” strengthens social and cultural ties, fostering solidarity and mutual support. PIC embodies this spirit by rallying young people and community leaders to address pressing local challenges. These youth-led initiatives include installing solar-powered streetlights and establishing a propane gas station to replace coal and wood, thereby tackling broader issues such as insecurity, service delivery, economic development, and environmental governance. 

This month, IRI and Banj celebrate the completion of the fourth PIC with youth projects. To learn more about this last iteration, we invite you to read this article written by Merck’n Sley Suprême Jean-Pierre on Banj Media and to watch the video below. As Haitians and the global community honor the legacy of the Battle of Vertières, IRI is proud to support Banj in fostering a new generation of leaders through PIC and other initiatives. These are individuals imbued with the courage and determination to embrace the “konbit” spirit, surmounting the challenges of today and shaping the future. 

This program is funded thanks to generous support of the National Endowment for Democracy. IRI plans to implement a fifth iteration of PIC in 2024 in partnership with Banj. 

The post Echoes of Vertières: How Haiti’s Past Inspires Today’s Young Leaders appeared first on International Republican Institute.

Local Spotlight

This article is part of a series highlighting the work of five inspiring and capacity-building initiatives the young civil activists are leading across Iraq to better their communities and foster significant change from the bottom up. 

Two inspiring leaders are harnessing the power of civic advocacy campaigns to bolster women’s social and political empowerment in the Ninawa Governate of northern Iraq. After participating in three IRI-led trainings that focused on advocacy campaign management, communication strategies, and facilitation skills, civic activists Raeda Salim and Saad Al-Wazzan created inspiring campaigns to bridge the gap between women’s political and social participation within Iraq’s government.   

Raeda Salim, a 36-year-old woman living in the Qaraqosh/Ninawa district who identifies as Assyrian-Catholic, a Christian minority group within Iraq, is dedicated to supporting women’s platforms as political candidates. After witnessing previous elections where qualified female political candidates did not receive necessary promotion or resources pertinent to the success of their campaigns, Salim decided to enact change through civil work. Her campaign has two objectives:  

1. to build women-led groups that work on political issues with a focus on inclusion of local minority or marginalized populations, and  
2. to change the perspectives of powerful male religious figures who dominate decision-making policies in the Ninawa community.  

Through dialogue sessions, Salim has brought community members and clergy native to Ninawa with different religious backgrounds; including Christians, Muslims, Yezidis, and Kakai, to discuss the role of women in religious doctrines, how the religions’ cultures can support women’s empowerment, and current challenges affecting women in the region. These activities continue to stress the importance and responsibility held by prominent male allies. Who can support women by hosting empowerment programs and trainings to enable women candidates and ensuring equal representation and participation in Iraqi politics. Salim strives to see “women win open, competitive elections and to set an example for generations of women to come.” 

In addition, Saad Al-Wazzan, a 34-year-old civic activist based in Ninawa has been channeling his previous political and civil society work to challenge community attitudes toward women political leaders.  

After attending the IRI led training on advocacy campaign management, especially the stakeholder mapping component, where they were provided with the tools to identify relevant stakeholders who have a significant impact potentially or directly on the women empowerment movement in Ninawa. Throughout his community dialogue sessions to identify stakeholders to assess the roots of the problem, he observed that the conservative beliefs and misguided religious interpretations surrounding women’s roles in the public sphere of society hinder women’s ability to actively participate in social and political spaces. To counter these harmful narratives, Al-Wazzan has invited religious and tribal leaders to community dialogue groups where they can openly discuss opinions on the portrayals of women in religious texts.

Following these dialogues, Al-Wazzan was able to convince clergymen to address gaps in women’s participation in their Friday sermons. In addition, Al-Wazzan has teamed up with local lawyers versed in Iraqi laws to analyze and identify legislation that creates obstacles for female leaders. Through dialogue sessions and desk reviews, Al-Wazzan exposed misusage of government quotas for political parties and installing unqualified women with little knowledge of their roles. In what one of the local lawyers described as a “pivotal time for women leaders in Ninawa communities,” Al-Wazzan has taken the first step in supporting women’s roles in decision-making positions and sharing the success of current women leaders.  

Both Salim and Al-Wazzan recognize how gendered stereotypes within male-dominated communities can no longer persist alongside of sustainable women’s political and social growth and long-term change. By directly targeting and engaging with powerful men at the center of decision-making processes, these civic activists continue to enact change throughout the Ninawa Governate.  

The post Integrating Women’s Voices into Local Politics in Ninawa, Iraq appeared first on International Republican Institute.

Local Spotlight

IRI relies on its many local partners to advance democracy around the world. Working with individuals on a local level empowers more people to take part in a political process and helps give them a voice in their communities. 

Active participation and meaningful engagement in the Western Balkan peace and reconciliation processes? Not a problem! Three IRI offices, together with six local partners, assembled 55 young “agents of change” from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Serbia to create the first iteration of the Regional Youth Partnership. The three-year project was publicly launched with the Regional Peacebuilding Academy from December 4-10, 2022, in Podgorica, Montenegro. IRI successfully convened a diverse group ready to roll up their sleeves, overcome barriers, and address the important issues of identity which have long created divisions in the Balkan region.  By engaging in team building activities, these young leaders declared their readiness to work together to advance reconciliation. 

More than 20 years after the brutal Yugoslav Wars, the Western Balkans remain divided, and reconciliation and peacebuilding are long overdue. Under the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) first People-to-People (P2P) regional project in Europe, IRI’s offices in Belgrade, Prishtina, and Sarajevo are working with six local partners to assist in this goal. Along with the Divac Foundation, Belgrade Center for Security Policy, the Faculty of Political Sciences Sarajevo, PRONI Center for Youth Development, Peer Educators Network Kosovo, and the Kosovo Center for Security Studies, IRI is helping to create a sustainable network of young people who are empowered to work together, engage communities, and take initiative for a better future.  

If more people from our respective nations were involved in something like this, it could go a long way in pushing reconciliation.

Male participant, Serbia 

How?  

The Regional Youth Partnership takes an all-of-society approach to peace, bringing together young leaders from six sectors: arts and culture, academic and policy research, business and entrepreneurship, media, politics, and sports.  The success of the Partnership relies on the long-term engagement of the group and the gradual development of common interests, values, and trust. 

The Regional Peacebuilding Academy produced promising initial results. Participants have defined a clear goal – to jointly achieve reconciliation and peacebuilding in the region – and committed to assist in the peace process and  use the Partnership’s platform to engage the broader public, ensuring the project’s sustainability.

The conversations with people I met in Podgorica made me reflect and stimulated me to be more involved in making changes and working for the prosperity of the greater community.

Female participant, Bosnia and Herzegovina  

Better Together 

During the Academy, IRI and its partners launched research efforts to study “social distance,” or the degree to which participants felt “sympathetic understanding” with parties on the other side of the conflict. This research helps to gain insight into drivers of conflict, intergroup trust, individual agency, and self-efficacy among participants. Perhaps surprisingly, the research found the degree of social distance to be fairly low among youth in the program. Participants consider the most effective steps toward peace and stability in the region to be:  

1. Teaching peace, tolerance, and conflict resolution to children and youth;  
2. All sides accepting responsibility for past deeds and committing to reconciliation, and; 
3. Developing more economically prosperous societies.   

In a survey administered at the beginning of the event, all respondents expressed confidence in their capacity to work with the members of the “other group” to promote peace.  

Personally, my biggest takeaway from this academy was the realization that even if we don’t necessarily agree on political situations in our respective countries, we still share many of the same problems and struggles, we found a way to look at each other and see friends and people similar to us, and not ‘the other side.’

Female participant, Kosovo

What comes next? 

Over the next three years, IRI and its partners will expand their network to include 120 participants, engaged through monthly meetings, joint field research, cross-border projects, professional exchanges, and cultural immersion. This is the People-to-People approach – bringing together representatives of conflicting groups to interact purposefully to promote mutual understanding, trust, empathy and resilient social ties. In turn, that group will be poised to transform their communities and countries into more understanding and resilient places.  

Participants were inspired by the words of Sulaiman Khatib, a Palestinian peace activist and one of the lecturers at the Peacebuilding Academy, “We are saviors, we are victims, we are the problem, we are solutions, we are humans.” These young people hold the future of their countries in their hands, and IRI is working to empower them with the tools necessary for change. 

The post Working with Local Partners to Build Peace in the Western Balkans appeared first on International Republican Institute.

Local Spotlight

The International Republican Institute (IRI) relies on its many local partners to advance democracy around the world. Working with individuals on a local level empowers more people to take part in a political process and helps give them a voice in their communities. In Laos, IRI has been busy working with the Association for the Development of Women and Legal Education (ADWLE) focusing on key citizen-centered governance programs that strengthen their societies on a local level.

The ADWLE works primarily in three main areas: legal education on gender, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and applicable national and international women’s rights laws; capacity building of villages to promote women’s rights and community behavioral change towards women and girls; and providing legal aid services, notably to female victims of gender-based violence. At present, ADWLE provides legal education and training to two main beneficiary groups: university institutions and village communities.

In early 2021, the ADWLE held two consultation workshops reaching a total of 87 participants (61 women) focused on discussing ways the Government of Laos (GoL), civil society organizations and relevant stakeholders can work collaboratively to implement the recommendations of the 8th-9th Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Periodic Report Concluding Observation (COB). In November and December of 2021, virtual workshops for a total of 293 participants (163 women) focused on discussing ways the GoL, civil society organizations, and relevant stakeholders can work collaboratively to implement the United Nations’ 8th-9th CEDAW Periodic Report Concluding Observation (COB) recommendations.

Since that time marginalized community members and the civil society organizations that amplify their voices have been called on to inform and educate government stakeholders about the needs and wants of marginalized communities.  TheADWLE has reported during project reflection sessions that they have seen a significant improvement in their ongoing relationship with government stakeholders in the last five years, since their participation in IRI’s Civil Society Academy for burgeoning CSOs in Laos.

There is significant evidence that government bodies have implemented the recommendations provided by ADWLE. Some examples include the People’s Supreme Court incorporating women’s advancement into its five-year development plan (2021-2025), the Ministry of Public Health establishing a committee to review and reassess the treatment provided to women during the termination of a pregnancy, and the Ministry of Sports and Education conducting trainings for teachers on women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

IRI believes one of the most effective ways in Laos to amplify citizen voices and create a more responsive political system is to create a government feedback loop between civil society and government stakeholders. Evidence that the government is seeking out feedback from CSOs and their beneficiaries is a promising sign of the creation of such a loop, which may lead to improved working conditions and a lessening of restrictions for CSOs in the future.  

The post Citizen Participation in Policymaking appeared first on International Republican Institute.

Local Spotlight

IRI understands the importance of putting local communities at the heart of our work. Our ‘Local Spotlight’ stories share the impact of our work with communities and local partners. 

Gambia Participates

In The Gambia, IRI has worked with local partner Gambia Participates (GP) since 2017 to support the country’s democratic transition following a 22-year dictatorship. For more than 6 years, IRI has provided technical and financial assistance to GP to strengthen their organizational capacity to implement impactful programs that have targeted areas including fiscal transparency, government accountability, constitutional reform, and electoral integrity. Gambia Participates has led initiatives to improve relationships between government and CSOs working in the governance sector, this after ongoing skepticism from the ruling governments. Projects are funded through various other USG and non-USG donors, to maintain the progress on Gambia’s democratic trajectory. 

Fiscal Transparency and Accountability

For more than 5 years, IRI collaborated with Gambia Participates to support fiscal transparency, public participation and budget accountability at all government levels.

To achieve this success GP promoted platforms at local levels for engagements between government officials and community members. Gambia Participates continues to support the Ministry of Finance in producing citizen versions of the National Budget.

In addition, Gambia Participates provided budget oversight training for new and re-elected parliamentarians and facilitated open budget dialogues between Parliamentarians and their constituents. During this collaboration with IRI, about 20 Parliamentarians directly engaged their constituents in 20 constituencies engaging 1135 participants from 220 communities of which 42% are females and 58% are males.

Gambia Participates also worked with the National Audit Office (NAO), which is the Supreme Audit Institution to introduce a citizen version of the Auditor General’s 2016-2018 audit reports. Successfully, NAO now continues to provide simplified audit reports not only limited to government accounts but special audits as well.

In tracking fiscal accountability, IRI supported Gambia Participates to launch a swift investigation on the use of Covid-19 in The Gambia, following governments allocation of over D500m in March 2020 to combat the spread of the Coronavirus.

In its “Corona The Gambia and the Millions” report, GP was quick to highlight the misuse of the Covid-19 emergency funds and the bad conditions of Covid-19 isolation centers in rural Gambia. As a result of these findings, the Minister of Health after two weeks of the report being published vindicated Gambia Participates findings at the National Assembly. As a result of this combined work, between 2020 and 2021, The Gambia’s overall fiscal transparency score increased from of 4 to 35 (out of 100), according to rankings in the Open Budget Survey.

Reform Advocacy and Awareness Raising

Since 2018, GP has worked on sensitizing citizens on constitutional, anti-corruption and overall democratic reform process in The Gambia. In February 2020, IRI supported Gambia Participates to review the Anti-Corruption Bill 2019 with Parliamentarians and civil society which was facilitated by local anti-corruption experts. The two-day activity was as a result of the tabling of the Anti-Corruption Bill 2019 in December 2019 by the government, after intense advocacy by Gambia Participates on the need for Anti-Corruption reform.

Following the retreat, GP submitted a paper to the National Assembly containing series of recommendations on the Anti-Corruption Bill 2019, most of which were incorporated in the bill which is now at an advanced stage at the Parliament. Gambia Participates continues to advocate and support the process of anti-corruption reforms in collaboration with the three arms of government and non-state actors.

During the previous constitutional review process, IRI supported GP to develop a Factsheet in collaboration with other civil society organizations making comparative analysis between the 1997 constitution and the 2020 proposed constitution. Although the legislation of the proposed draft constitution has stalled, through continuous advocacy and pressure from civil society groups like GP, the government has recently indicated the desire to revive the process and continue pushing much needed reforms.

Election Integrity and Observation

In 2021 and 2022, GP yielded the largest ever citizen observation mission for both the 2021 Presidential and 2022 Legislative elections. A total of 65 number of long-term observers and 545 short-term observers monitored the electoral environment and collected timely information and data on the overall conduct and implementation of elections in Gambia. GP produced 10 written statements on the electoral process and continues to follow up on progress made toward recommendations made to key stakeholder groups through their observation. To follow up on election observation findings, GP worked with electoral stakeholders in partnership with NED to incorporate the legislative gaps in the Elections Bill 2020, which is currently going through legislative procedures. Gambia Participates presented an Electoral Reform Position Paper to Parliament which is currently being considered by a legislative committee responsible for the review of the Elections Bill.

Through IRI technical and financial support, GP is planning to observe the upcoming Mayoral elections in May 2023, using lessons learned and past experiences form 2021/2022, they will again yield the largest domestic observation team leading up to and on election day.

Thanks to the efforts of IRI’s partners like Gambia Participates, more people will have a chance to build a future in the democratic society they deserve.

Democracy from a Local PerspectiveRead More Local Spotlights

IRI understands the importance of putting local communities at the heart of our work. Our ‘Local Spotlight’ stories share the impact of our work with communities and local partners. 

Read More

The post Gambia Participates appeared first on International Republican Institute.

Local Spotlight

IRI understands the importance of putting local communities at the heart of our work. Our ‘Local Spotlight’ stories share the impact of our work with communities and local partners. 

For a democracy to succeed, all voices must be heard. Participation in the political process cannot just be on a national level. Local involvement is a key ingredient to good governance and a pillar of strength in any democratic society.

As IRI works to advance democracy worldwide in over 100 countries, we prioritize working with local partners to strengthen political participation and the democratic process in many communities across the globe.  

In Peru, IRI has worked with local partners CEDEPAS Norte and Ashanti Peru, to organize and host a series of advocacy workshops with women and youth civil society representatives in Cusco, La Libertad, and Puno. The goal of these workshops is to advance their skills and knowledge and encourage them to actively engage in the political process.  

In September of 2022, IRI hosted 16 workshops with 167 individuals (130 female, 37 male) before the local and regional elections in October 2022. IRI and local partners branded all activities with CSO representatives under the name “Ciudadanía Activa” which has created a sense of community and network among the participants in the three regions.

As a result of participation in IRI’s capacity building activities, youth and women civil society representatives from Cusco, La Libertad, and Puno, developed regional agendas with youth and women priorities specific to each region. Despite competing priorities and limited time, representatives consistently engaged in trainings and events, and as a result, constructively discussed and outlined clear priorities to highlight with newly elected officials in Peru.

In preparation for regional and municipal elections, IRI also worked with local trainers to host workshops in September and October 2022 for 57 women candidates running for various regional, departmental, and provincial positions. Of these candidates, 20 of them were under 29 years old. The workshops explored a variety of topics such as combating violence against women in politics, media training, digital campaign management, and campaign finance.  

The goal was to increase knowledge and capacity to safely participate in electoral processes. Despite time constraints and competing priorities, representatives of 22 different parties and regional/local movements as well as independent candidates engaged consistency in trainings, and as a result, increased their knowledge on campaign finance, developing policy proposals, and digital media. Several of the candidates who participated led winning campaigns.  

IRI looks forward to continuing its work with local partners in Peru and building on this success.

Democracy from a Local PerspectiveRead More Local Spotlights

IRI understands the importance of putting local communities at the heart of our work. Our ‘Local Spotlight’ stories share the impact of our work with communities and local partners. 

Read More

The post Engaging Women and Youth in Peru appeared first on International Republican Institute.