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Every 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women reminds us that gender-based violence remains one of the most pervasive and devastating human rights violations globally. It affects women in every region, social group and political system.

Would you take a job where abuse and violence were almost guaranteed? This is the reality of modern political life, making it less appealing to women - especially younger women - leading to even less representative democracies. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Parliaments around the world are taking practical steps to prevent violence, protect women, and prosecute offenders.

Twenty years ago, governments gathered in Geneva to establish common principles for multistakeholder digital governance, resulting in the WSIS Agreement. Today, as the WSIS is being reviewed, the effectiveness of that collaborative process is being tested against a digital landscape that is vastly different from what it was in 2005.

In an era of intensifying information manipulation and disinformation, democratic societies are facing increasingly complex threats. Malign influence campaigns—conducted by both state and non-state actors—have exploited vulnerabilities in national information ecosystems, eroding trust, deepening polarization and undermining confidence in democratic processes. A range of initiatives have been launched to counter these threats, but responses remain fragmented and uneven across contexts.

The Protecting Elections Training Curriculum comprises 19 customizable activities on the Integrated Framework for Protecting Elections, with an emphasis on electoral risk management, resilience-building and crisis management. It is a comprehensive and highly interactive capacity-development tool, designed for a two-day training workshop to be run at the country, regional or global level.

This self-assessment survey is a key component of International IDEA’s Integrated Framework for Protecting Elections. It enables electoral management bodies and other organizations to evaluate their own challenges, resources and practices.

By fostering reflection, collaboration and ownership, the survey supports national stakeholders in strengthening their capacity to safeguard integrity, in building more resilient, transparent, inclusive and gender-sensitive and trusted elections.

The project "Combatting Electoral Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI)” is advancing in supporting civil society actors to increase their capacity to counter foreign interference during elections.

This Guide presents the Integrated Framework for Protecting Elections, a practical tool designed to help electoral practitioners, policymakers and democracy support actors safeguard the integrity of elections. It introduces the Framework’s concepts and resources, offering guidance on how to apply them.

Online voting is no longer just an experiment—it is reshaping how elections are run around the world. From boosting accessibility for voters abroad to tackling longstanding concerns about accuracy and fraud, its promise is clear. Yet experiences so far show that success depends on far more than technology. Legal frameworks, institutional capacity, timing and voter trust have all made the difference between innovation and failure.

Ahead of COP30, to take place in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, the gap between urgently needed climate action and global governance responses remains. Citizen deliberation has emerged as a leading example of democratic governance innovations to address this gap by raising the ambition and legitimacy of climate policy. 

Despite notable progress in making their work more transparent and accessible, parliaments remain among the least trusted public institutions. This report produced by Inter Pares examines how partnerships between parliaments and civil society can help rebuild trust and enhance democratic engagement.

This report analyses the enablers and incentives of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) in Moldova’s electoral processes, applying a 22-factor analytical framework developed under International IDEA’s project ‘Combatting Election-related Foreign Information, Manipulation and Interference’, with support from Global Affairs Canada.

Hace treinta años, la Declaración de Copenhague de 1995 afirmó la democracia como piedra angular del desarrollo social centrado en las personas. En 2025, mientras el mundo se prepara para la Cumbre Social Mundial de Doha, esa visión se reaviva con renovada urgencia. El borrador de la Declaración de Doha reafirma el papel esencial de la democracia en el avance del desarrollo social, un reconocimiento prácticamente ausente en los textos recientes de la ONU. Este compromiso renovado ofrece una base normativa y política fundamental, que recuerda a la comunidad internacional que un progreso significativo depende de que la gobernanza democrática y el desarrollo social inclusivo avancen de forma paralela.

Thirty years ago, the 1995 Copenhagen Declaration affirmed democracy as a cornerstone of people-centered social development. In 2025, as the world prepares for the World Social Summit in Doha, that vision is being revived with new urgency. The draft Doha Declaration reasserts democracy’s essential role in advancing social development—a recognition largely absent from recent UN texts. This renewed commitment offers a vital normative and political foundation, reminding the global community that meaningful progress depends on democratic governance and inclusive social development moving in tandem.

The 2024 global super election cycle put electoral integrity under unprecedented pressure. Across continents, rapid advances in digital technologies reshaped how campaigns were run, how information spread and how voters engaged. From AI-driven campaigns to disinformation and unregulated online advertising, rapid technological change exposed gaps in Europe’s electoral policy framework and around the world. 

Climate litigation has emerged as an important tool in addressing the gap between climate commitments and implementation. Since the late 1980s, nearly 3,000 cases have been brought worldwide, with a marked increase since the Paris Agreement in 2015. This report examines how litigation complements other forms of climate action by promoting accountability, advancing rights-based approaches and contributing to public debate and ambition.

Governments around the world are increasingly using legal and institutional tools to silence critics and weaken democratic safeguards. This report explores how such tactics—ranging from media capture and obstructive regulations to manipulation of funding—systematically close civic space and undermine the actors that hold power to account.

The regulatory landscape surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Latin America is evolving rapidly, and with it, the role of AI in elections is also changing. The issues of AI-amplified disinformation and political polarization have become top priorities throughout the electoral cycle. However, addressing these challenges is placing an immense strain on governments and electoral institutions across the region.

A functioning and fair prosecution service is critical to the perceptions and reality of the justice system and judicial independence. This primer identifies and distils key issues, options and considerations based on comparative insights and international norms for the regulation of the prosecution service at the constitutional level. It particularly focuses on the status of the chief prosecutor, who is often the principal subject of constitutional regulation.

On 15–16 October, around 50 experts and practitioners from across the world met in Stockholm for the Global Expert Meeting on Protecting Elections, hosted by International IDEA with the support of the Government of Canada. Over two days, representatives of electoral management bodies, regional electoral networks, and government institutions from more than 15 countries discussed experiences and ways forward for the International IDEA’s Integrated Framework for Protecting Elections.