The National Democratic Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

To encourage young Jordanians to participate in politics, the Al-Hayat Center for Civil Society Development has launched a campaign focused on engaging and registering young voters for Nov. 9 parliamentary elections. The campaign is based in part on the findings of a survey conducted by Al-Hayat, in partnership with NDI, designed to uncover young people's attitudes toward political involvement and specifically their experiences in the previous election in 2007.

The number of Lebanese women elected to municipal offices more than doubled this year, increasing from the 201 elected in 2004 to 530 who were successful in this year’s polls. The increase was particularly noteworthy because it came without the help of a quota law, a technique used in a number of countries in the Middle East and elsewhere to ensure a specified number of seats for women.

One factor in the women’s success was the greater number of female candidates and the help provided to some of them by the Shariky program, a project that supports women candidates through training and mentoring.

"Georgian women cannot wait another century for equal participation in the governance of our country," said Leila Aptsiauri, a member of a local city council in Georgia. She was speaking at a conference in Tbilisi, the capital, where representatives from 11 political parties discussed with civil society leaders the benefits to including more women on candidate lists and in political party leadership structures.

For young people in East Africa seeking to have a political voice, the two-year-old Regional Youth Leadership Academy (RYPLA) has helped show the way. One of its graduates, Daniel Taabu, has become executive director of the National Rainbow Coalition-Kenya (NARC-K), a political party with a seat in parliament. In Uganda, 14 graduates started Uganda Youth Stand Up, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to increase civic participation by registering one million young Ugandans to vote ahead of the February 2011 elections. Six of 15 Tanzanian participants from RYPLA's first year are now running for parliament.

In Serbia, a new website called the Istinomer, or Truth-O-Meter, rates politicians' statements based on truthfulness, consistency and whether they fulfill campaign promises or policy pledges. The team behind the Truth-O-Meter, which includes a former NDI trainer and two investigative journalists, researches and analyzes statements they find or that are submitted by the public. They publish a rating of the statement on a five point scale, along with the facts supporting their judgment.

NDI recently established a partnership with the Algerian Muslim Scouts (SMA) to encourage members to participate in public life. The SMA counts some 15,000 young men and women as leaders and 130,000 members across Algeria. By working together and building on a previous joint initiative to encourage civic education among young people, NDI and the SMA hope to inspire members to channel their energy into positive community action.