Political dissidents from China, Syria, Iran, Ethiopia, Cuba and Burma joined NDI Chairman Madeleine K. Albright and others to pay tribute to the life and work of Václav Havel at the National Endowment for Democracy. Havel, a playwright and political activist who went on to become the president of Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic, died last month at the age of 75.

Voter enthusiasm was again a dominant feature of this third round of voting in the Egyptian People’s Assembly elections. Three credible rounds of polling now raise the likely prospect that Egypt’s next parliament will reflect the will of the people, NDI said in a statement released in Cairo.

Two years after the devastating January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the country is attempting to rebuild with the help of development proposals prepared by citizens. These efforts, known as roadmaps, or “cahiers de charges,” have been endorsed by elected officials across the country as a way to demonstrate that they are listening to citizens and have set specific goals for reconstruction and development efforts.