Democratic activists worldwide are most successful when they share skills and learn from each other across ideologies and cultures. The World Movement for Democracy (WMD) provided such a global forum in Jakarta, Indonesia, where activists, practitioners, academics and policy makers generated ideas for promoting and strengthening democracy.

The idea came to Vuka Crnjanski when she heard a government official say of a group illegally charging tolls on Serbia's highways: "It's OK to steal a little. This group just went too far."

"Such a statement should have gotten the minister in serious trouble," said Crnjanski, who had worked with NDI as a political party and civil society trainer and was formerly senior figure in Serbia's Liberal Democratic Party. "However, there was virtually no reaction to the statement from any political parties, government officials, NGOs or the media."

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.’”