For more than two decades, women in Bahrain have struggled to raise awareness of domestic violence.  The Kingdom has no laws or government policies to address violence against women and a draft law that would establish penalties has been languishing in the parliament for years. To push the issue, the Bahrain Women’s Union (BWU), an association of 12 women's organizations, launched an advocacy campaign on Dec. 11 for  a domestic violence law, which has been a priority for the union since its founding in 2001.

To achieve more peaceful and credible elections, African countries should ratify the African Union’s (AU) charter on elections and enforce its standards, according to a communiqué from election experts and practitioners from across Africa.

Strengthening the building blocks of democratic legislatures – transparency, accountability, oversight, responsiveness and effective legislation – is among the goals of the House Democracy Partnership (HDP), an organization created by the U.S. House of Representatives to promote and support emerging democratic governments around the world.  HDP currently has 14 partner countries on five continents.

An innovative online mapping tool for analyzing election results data from Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election using demographic, ethnographic, topographic and security information was launched last month by NDI. The tool also identifies areas that had significant electoral irregularities.