A Legislative Openness Working Group, co-anchored by the Government and the Congress of Chile and NDI, was formally launched at the annual summit in London on Thursday of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The working group is a partnership between civil society, parliaments and governments to share good practice on legislative openness, including information about commitments that governments and parliaments can make to engage citizens more actively in the legislative process.

Against the backdrop of a peaceful and smooth election day, Georgia demonstrated that the fundamentals of democracy are taking hold in a country where just 10 years ago a fraudulent election precipitated street protests that led to a change in government, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) said in a statement here today.

Even though Kyrgyzstan has had a female president and women hold 23 percent of the seats in its 120-member parliament, women are still struggling to carve out leadership roles in the legislature and political parties.

The development of political parties - with their contrasting visions of how citizens should be served - are a sign of a healthy democracy. In a new publication, “Developing Party Policies,” NDI compares how different parties from emerging and established democracies have created ideologies, rules, structures and processes.