Candidate debates that bring contenders face to face with voters and each other are increasingly becoming a mainstay of the political landscape.

Across the globe, debate sponsors share the belief that debates benefit new democracies in many ways, including helping voters make informed choices, reducing the potential for violence in countries coming out of civil war, encouraging candidates to focus on issues rather than personality or ethnic differences, and holding elected officials accountable for campaign promises.

Their names are scattered across a map of Nicaragua.

Jaime Peters Flores is vice president of the Municipal Council of Adolescents and Youth in the municipality of Puerto Cabezas-Bilwi.

At the first global event of its kind, election experts from more than 25 countries on five continents came together in Mexico City in early June to discuss ways to promote electoral integrity and strengthen election observation around the world.

The attendees – citizen observers, international observers and election officials – gathered with the goal of enhancing the transparency, accountability and inclusiveness of elections worldwide by forging new channels of communication among the three communities.

Though half of the world’s population, women continue to be underrepresented at all levels of government as voters, party leaders and elected officials. Just over 20 percent of parliamentarians worldwide are women.

In the Arab world, that number is about 16 percent, and it’s lower still in some countries. In Lebanon, for example, one of the earliest places in the region where women gained the right to vote, in 1952, just four of the 128 parliamentarians are women.

NDI mourns the tragic death of Libyan activist Salwa Bughaigis, who was brutally murdered on June 25 in Benghazi after casting her ballot and encouraging other Libyans to participate in elections for a new legislature.