In August, NDI’s Democracy and Technology (DemTech) team traveled to Honduras to provide three women’s rights organizations in the Consorcio de Mujeres Unidas por Honduras (or Consortium of Women United for Honduras) tools and support to strengthen their digital security. Building digital resilience is essential for civil society organizations (CSOs) to operate safely and effectively. A compromised device, hacked email account, or sensitive information sent through unencrypted channels endangers the organization as well as the communities it serves.

As international elections approach and fears about potential security threats increase, NDI and its partners are leading the way and finding common solutions to the new technology-based challenges that elections are facing. The 7th edition of the Information Integrity Conference (DISICON-7) was a part of this critical effort focused on the intersections of artificial intelligence (AI), online information and electoral integrity.

October 11, 2024, marks the UN’s International Day of the Girl Child. This year’s focus, “Girls’ Vision for the Future,” makes the need for girls’ and young women’s equitable political involvement especially apparent. Despite girls and young women being critical parts of political environments, their global participation within these spaces continues to be limited, with numerous obstacles designed to exclude them. Ongoing research shows that gender differences in political engagement start early, often taking hold in formative years before individuals reach political maturity.

In the past three decades, Côte d’Ivoire has faced a wide variety of identity-based tensions that have led to election-related violence. During the Presidential election period in 2020, over 50 people were killed, and many more were injured and arrested. This cycle of violence around elections has long been an issue in Cote d’Ivoire, and it stands in the way of free and fair polls in the country, as often voters don’t feel safe going to vote, and elections officials are mistreated and killed.