Two days before January's swearing-in of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – Africa’s first female head of state – more than 250 women met in Monrovia to discuss the role of women in African politics, business and economics.

In May, Montenegrins voted in a nationwide referendum to end their union with Serbia. For the first time, SMS text messaging technology was used to help safeguard the vote by enabling observers to report results almost instantly from polling stations throughout the country.

When Palestinians went to the polls in January, nearly every one of the 1,008 polling stations in the West Bank and Gaza had been mapped using Global Positioning System satellite technology. Thanks to a pilot Geographic Information Systems (GIS) project conducted over the past year, NDI created a "smart map" of the West Bank and Gaza that allows users to search, edit and analyze observation information and election results at polling stations throughout the Palestinian territories.