For the first time, Tunisians freely elected a parliament and president in three national elections in 2014. A new round of focus group research conducted by NDI shows that citizens in Tunisia view these elections as a successful step in the country’s transition to democracy.

The research, conducted January  22 to 29 with 133 participants from four cities, including Tunis, Jendouba, Sousse and Medenine, built on 11 previous rounds of public opinion research led by NDI.

With only three classrooms and two teachers, a local school in the Pakleae community in the Roluos Meanchey commune in northwest Cambodia faced severe overcrowding. Already beyond capacity, the school was unable to handle the increasing number of students coming through its doors. 

A resident complained to her local elected officials and leaders at a town hall event organized by NDI. Shortly afterward, the provincial Education Department sent two new teachers to the Roluos secondary school, as well as one more teacher to the Pakleae primary school.

A new blog, written by NDI staff, tells the inspiring stories of citizens and organizations doing the challenging work of building democracy around the world.

Over the last two decades, disputes over land rights, politics and religion have divided ethnic groups in Côte d’Ivoire and culminated in deadly flashpoints, including the 2002 Ivorian civil war and a post-election crisis between 2010 and 2011.

As the Syrian civil war heads into its fourth year, formal government institutions are no longer present across much of the country. The responsibility for community services, such as health care, education and humanitarian assistance, has fallen upon newly-elected local councils or other decision makers not affiliated with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Albanians have deep concerns about their country’s health care system. A lack of professionalism among medical personnel, broken or missing equipment, and corruption were among the primary complaints of those who participated in focus group discussions organized by NDI that were held throughout the country this month.

But civil society groups are working to quantify and overcome these challenges by collecting hard numbers on these concerns that will help the government find solutions. They are doing it using a data-collection methodology traditionally used by election observers.