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Africa’s natural resources provide a unique opportunity to foster human and economic development. However, abundant endowments of natural resources do not necessarily lead to equivalent levels of prosperity, broad-based development and resource-based industrialization. One key obstacle preventing African countries from realizing this potential is poor governance.

The first class of International IDEA’s Youth Democracy Academy graduated on 17 July in a ceremony attended by representatives of organizations who will be hosting the alumni as interns for the next six months and representatives from International IDEA Member States.

في خضم الأحداث التي مرت بها المنطقة العربية منذ عام ٢٠١٠، ظهرت حاجة ملحة لتأسيس بيت خبرة عربي يُعنى ببناء وإصلاح الدساتير العربية. واستجابة لتلك الحاجة، تلاقت مجموعة من مختلف الدول العربية، من المهتمين بالإصلاح الدستوري والملتزمين بالتحول الديمقراطي في الدول العربية، بهدف تأسيس منبر عربي للقانون الدستوري.

As in most African countries, gender inequalities remain a major challenge to human development in Côte d’Ivoire . Though women’s and girls’ condition significantly improved since Côte d’Ivoire’s independence, they still face challenges, especially in health, education, labour, access to home ownership and justice, entrepreneurship, political representation and inclusiveness, that negatively impact women’s empowerment.

The Office of International IDEA to the EU (EUO), with the support of the Tunis office, hosted a stand at the annual European Development Days (EDD), held in Brussels during 7-8 June 2017. The annual EDD event is organized by the European Commission to gather the global development community to share ideas and experiences, and inspire future action and partnerships.

The overarching objective of this workshop was to assess the causes and patterns of money influencing elections in Southern Africa and the impact on the quality of democracy in the region.

It sought to help identify the key electoral finance reform interventions that will require the attention of political leaders, EMBs, civil society and regional organizations such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The National Dialogue on Political Parties’ Internal Democracy was jointly organized by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and the Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD-Kenya).

Substate constitutions serve similar purposes as central-state constitutions.

They define the system of governance of the substate entity, outline its institutions and define the responsibilities of those institutions. They also explain the separation of powers between substate institutions, and may codify citizens’ rights vis-à-vis the substate entity.

In April 2017, International IDEA initiated a one-year project to organize dialogue sessions between leading Yemeni actors in an effort to bridge the divide on the country’s future system of government. The project, “Support to the Yemeni Peace Process—Constitutional Dialogues”, is being organized in cooperation with the United Nations Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary General for Yemen (UNOSESGY), which is leading the formal peace negotiations.

International IDEA, the Community of Democracies and the United Nations Development Programme-UNDP held the MENA region Consultation on Gender Equality and Political Empowerment of Women, in Tunis, on 12 April 2017. This Consultation was attended by government officials, regional governmental organisations and civil society organisations, experts, practitioners and academics from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.

تلعب المحكمة الدستورية دوراً رئيسياً في ضمان سيادة القانون عبر ضمان سيادة الدستور، والحفاظ على الشرعية وصيانة استقرار النظام السياسي بالحفاظ على التوازن بين سلطات الدولة وتوفير مرجعية لحل النزاعات والخلافات السياسية
عبر التفسير الدستوري والمراجعة القضائية والفصل في النتائج الانتخابية، وهي بذلك تلعب دوراً سياسياً بالغ الأهمية رغم صبغتها القضائية التي تفترض عدم الانحياز والنأي عن التجاذبات والمصالح السياسية المتناقضة. ويستلزم هذا الدور

The Secretary-General of International IDEA, Yves Leterme, undertook a working visit to Benin 3-5 April 2017 to deepen the partnership between International IDEA’s and its newest Member State Benin. The Republic of Benin joined as International IDEA’s 30th Member State in June 2016.

On 4 and 5 April 2017, the Secretary-General of International IDEA, Yves Leterme, undertook a working visit to explore future partnership opportunities with Senegal.

Africa has significant natural resource wealth. However, the continent suffers from the paradox of plenty, meaning that abundant endowments of natural resources do not lead to equivalent levels of prosperity for Africans in terms of broad-based development and resource-based industrialisation.

Throughout the world, the number of women elected to office remains significantly lower than the number of men. Different factors contribute to the existence of gender inequality in politics. An increased understanding of the issues surrounding political finance has demonstrated a link between political finance and women’s participation in politics. Lack of access to financial resources is regularly identified as a key barrier to the participation of women in politics.

Education, increased awareness on the need to have women running for political leadership positions, overcoming traditional challenges based on stereotypes and understanding the difference between having quotas and having substantive participation of women are some of the main challenges and opportunities that men and women are identifying for the advancement of gender equality and political empowerment in Africa.

As countries around the world continue to struggle in bringing the youth into decision-making positions within their democratic institutions and processes, International IDEA identified the need to design new tools that allow young people the opportunity to analyse and explore their democratic realities for effective participation.  

The members of the new Tunisian government of national unity were sworn in on 27 August, one day after winning the parliamentary vote of confidence. The new government has 40 members (26 ministers and 14 secretaries of state), and 20 per cent of them are women (up from 10 per cent in the previous government).

On 1 December Africa had its own “shock election”. The incumbent president of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, lost to the opposition candidate Adama Barrow. Just as the Trump election in the US took political analysts by surprise, it was not expected that Jammeh would have to move out of the State House after more than 20 years.

Today, Benin joined International IDEA as the 30th Member State of the organization. At the Council meeting held in Stockholm today, Member States approved Benin’s membership application and welcomed Benin, represented by Ambassador Eusèbe Agbangla, to International IDEA.

The Republic of Benin will be the seventh country from the African continent to become a Member of International IDEA (in addition to Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa).