"We know that democracy is the one road we can all walk down together," said NDI Chairman Madeleine K. Albright as she welcomed 500 international visitors from more than 100 countries to NDI's International Leaders Forum (ILF) at the Democratic National Convention in August.

In addition to having a firsthand look at the convention proceedings, the visitors took part in a series of bipartisan symposiums that extended throughout the convention week. They examined such issues as how democracy can deliver dividends for citizens, combating global poverty, international relations, and the role of primaries, nominating conventions and presidential debates in the U.S. election process.

Among the visitors were current and former heads of state, speakers of parliament, elected officials, cabinet ministers, political party leaders and more than 100 ambassadors from the Washington-based diplomatic corps.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who spoke at the program's opening reception, expressed her enthusiasm for the leaders' opportunity to see "our democracy in action."

Speakers included former President Bill Clinton; former Vice President Walter Mondale; the foreign policy advisors to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama; former World Bank President James Wolfensohn; Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO John Danilovich; former Senate Majority Leader and NDI Board Member Tom Daschle; Paul Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf, former chairs respectively of the Democratic and Republican National Committees; former Virginia Governor and now Senator-elect Mark Warner; journalists Tom Brokaw, moderator of "Meet the Press," Washington Post columnists Eugene Robinson and E.J. Dionne, and Paul Gigot and Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editors respectively of The Wall Street Journal and Atlanta Journal- Constitution; and actor/director and advocate Ben Affleck.

In organizing the symposiums, NDI partnered with the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Club de Madrid, 2008 Rocky Mountain Roundtable, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, the United Nations Foundation's Better World Campaign, ONE Campaign Vote '08, and the Center for U.S. Global Engagement.

Pictured Above: Speaker Pelosi at ILF

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Published on Dec. 4, 2008