This article was originally published on the NDItech DemocracyWorks blog.

Marlon Zamora

Silvia Gutiérrez has been an active member of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista, MRS) since she joined the party as a pollwatcher for Nicaragua’s 2006 presidential elections. After her bid for city council in her hometown of Managua in 2008 was cut short when her party was denied participation, she decided to improve her leadership and communication skills by attending a training program aimed at getting more young people involved in politics and civic life.

Mexican women made historic strides last year in securing seats in the country’s national legislature, where they account for more than 36 percent of the membership. But political parties are still struggling to realize similar gains at the state level where just 6.1 percent of the nation’s 2,400 municipal presidents are women.

Participants in a new focus group research study, conducted by NDI, largely think their country is headed in the wrong direction, listing unemployment, rising prices, stagnant salaries and corruption as having a major impact on their quality of life.

However, the European Commission’s conditional recommendation to offer Albania candidacy status for EU accession is viewed by some participants as a sign of optimism and improvements, and a main indication for some that the country is on the right track.