Working at NDI wasn’t the most natural fit at first for Sushmita Subba Manandhar. When she began working as an office assistant at 26 for NDI in her native Nepal in 1999, she had little interest in the Institute’s programs with political parties or civic organizations.

“I still remember our first director asked me if I was interested in politics,” Manandhar recalled. “I said, ‘No, that is the last thing that I will do in my life.’”

For the first time in 24 years, Sudanese citizens will have the opportunity to cast ballots for a democratically-elected government in multi-party elections. For many Sudanese, the April 11-13 vote also will be their first time going to the polls.

NDI has worked in Nepal since 1994 to strengthen citizen engagement in the political process. The Institute has pursued this goal through civic education programs, opinion polling, assistance to domestic election monitoring organizations and training political party leaders on organization and leadership skills.

With women becoming increasingly prominent in North African politics, NDI brought together more than 60 women from across the region who are both established and emerging as political and civic leaders to discuss the importance of women's political engagement. The group, from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, met in Casablanca, Morocco, March 13–14, a site that was chosen in part because of the record 3,406 new women councilors who were voted into office during last year’s municipal elections.

For four days in March 2003, in what is known as the Cuban Black Spring, 75 Cuban journalists, librarians, and democracy and human rights activists were arrested and imprisoned by Cuban government officials. Those detained were sentenced to six to 28 years for their peaceful advocacy for political, social and economic reforms.

Young people age 35 and under make up more than half of Algeria's population, but they are largely absent from political life. Broad confidence in the government is lacking, with youth seeing no clear benefit to getting involved at even the most basic level in their communities. The political system provides few openings for young people to participate in a constructive manner. Their mounting frustration is sometimes taken out through street protests, which can turn violent.