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Deepening democracy so it can provide tangible improvements to people’s lives is an overarching objective of NDI’s citizen participation programs. Making democracy work requires informed and active citizens who understand how to voice their interests, act collectively and hold public officials accountable. Citizens must understand ideas about citizenship, politics and government. They need knowledge to make decisions about policy choices and the proper use of authority, along with the skills to voice their concerns, act collectively and hold public officials accountable. Citizens also need to have the desire to exercise their rights, and they need the political space to do so without unreasonable resistance or harassment from authorities or others.
NDI’s citizen participation programs – including support of civic and voter education, get-out-the-vote efforts, issue organizing and advocacy, budget oversight and government monitoring – help citizens master the techniques needed to initiate action, solve complex problems and become leaders in their own right.
For more than 20 years, NDI has conducted programs to activate and empower citizens and civic groups, establish strong civic cultures and achieve an appropriate balance of power between citizens and government.
NDI’s Mission to Increase and Strengthen Citizen Participation
Deepening democracy so it can provide tangible improvements to people’s lives is an overarching objective of NDI’s citizen participation programs. Making democracy work requires informed and active citizens who understand how to voice their interests, act collectively and hold public officials accountable. Citizens must understand ideas about citizenship, politics and government. They need knowledge to make decisions about policy choices and the proper use of authority, along with the skills to voice their concerns, act collectively and hold public officials accountable. They also need to have the desire to exercise their rights, and they need the political space to do so without unreasonable resistance or harassment from authorities or others.
NDI’s citizen participation programs – including support of civic and voter education, get-out-the-vote efforts, issue organizing and advocacy, budget oversight and government monitoring – help citizens master the techniques needed to initiate action, solve complex problems and become leaders in their own right.
For more than 20 years, NDI has conducted programs to activate and empower citizens and civic groups, establish strong civic cultures and achieve an appropriate balance of power between citizens and government.
About Citizen Participation
NDI’s citizen participation programs are intended to increase and strengthen the organized and active political involvement of citizens. Much of the work focuses on helping citizens engage public officials and political leaders on substantive issues of community concern. NDI helps citizens take actions that help transform the way government, parliaments and parties behave and the way politics is practiced, instead of bypassing these institutions altogether. Whether advocating for specific policies, providing expertise on poverty issues, monitoring the implementation of a policy, or raising awareness about needs, citizens can contribute to a government’s willingness and ability to work on behalf of citizens.
Our Approach
NDI believes that democracy programs are most successful when they support indigenous efforts for change. Citizens around the world desire accountable and responsive political institutions, yet NDI does not presume to impose solutions on local partners. Nor does it believe that one democratic system can be replicated elsewhere. Rather, NDI shares experiences and offers a range of options, so that leaders and activists can select those practices and institutions that may work best in their own circumstances. NDI also has a long tradition of promoting solidarity among democratic activists the world over and helping them share lessons with one another.
NDI's approach generally involves partnering with local civic groups to help them develop the capabilities needed to undertake organized political actions, such as civic and voter education efforts, issue advocacy campaigns, political-process monitoring initiatives, and community organizing campaigns. In each case, NDI introduces groups to various tools and techniques.
NDI recognizes, however, that empowering citizens requires more than encouraging participation or providing tools. It also must mean helping citizens master the organizing techniques (e.g. issue identification and analysis, planning, resource management, deliberation, communication, fundraising, and evaluation) and develop the know-how required to take collective action, solve complex problems, and become leaders in their own right.
Throughout the course of a given citizen participation program, NDI assists its local partners as they climb a "ladder of participation" that starts with loosely organized, politically inactive groups on the bottom rung and well-organized and politically influential groups on the top. NDI guides groups from one level to the next using a mix of assistance tools that heavily emphasize the practice of "learning by doing." NDI also seeks to engage local groups higher up the ladder to serve as role models, mentors, and facilitators for their counterparts at lower levels. NDI has documented this process in places like Croatia and Sierra Leone, where the Institute has helped local groups capture their successful experiences in toolkits and training courses that can now be accessed by less developed groups.
