At an NDI workshop for politically active women in Tirana, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha pledged to support a proposed gender quota law that would result in significant increases to the number of women holding elective office.

The year 2007 marked significant achievements for women in Jordanian politics, with seven women elected to the Lower House of Parliament and a record number of women elected to municipal councils across the country.

In anticipation of Nov. 30 presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire, NDI, the UN mission in Abidjan and the Ivorian electoral commission co-led negotiations on a code of conduct for Ivorian political parties. The code was adopted April 24 during a signing ceremony attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The challenges facing democracies to spur economic growth, protect human rights and improve people’s lives was the subject of the first plenary session at the 2008 World Movement for Democracy (WMD) Assembly, held in Kyiv, Ukraine, in April.

Major political parties in Georgia have taken a significant step to ensure that their party members adhere to established standards of conduct in advance of May 21 parliamentary elections. The “Code of Conduct for Party Activists” – a voluntary agreement between the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Georgia’s political parties – was officially launched at a press conference April 9 in Tbilisi.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished Representatives, ladies and gentlemen -- It’s a pleasure to speak with you about Serbian politics and the future of its democracy.  The National Democratic Institute has worked in Serbia since 1997 with political parties, civil society, and parliament to support the country’s democratic transition process.  NDI supports similar efforts in six other countries in the Balkans.

Hopes that Kenya’s last elections on December 27, 2007, would be seen as a model for African democracies were dashed within 48 hours of the vote when violence erupted amid charges of election result manipulation.

Adversarial parties in Iraq recently achieved a major breakthrough – a negotiated end to the year-long Sunni bloc boycott of the Kirkuk Council. This significant development followed a multi-party, multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic symposium organized by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in late October.