The National Democratic Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

Members of NDI's 2009 International Election Observation Mission in Afghanistan presented their experiences, analyzed the results and discussed the implications of the elections for the future of Afghanistan.

Thursday, Sept. 3, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1800 K St., NW, Washington DC.

• Christine Fair is an assistant professor in the Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS) at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, she served as a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation, a political officer to the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul and as a senior research associate in U.S. Institute of Peace's Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. Her research focuses upon political and military affairs in South Asia. She has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books including Treading Softly on Sacred Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations on Sacred Space (OUP, 2008); The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (USIP, 2008), Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of U.S. Internal Security Assistance (USIP, 2006); among others and has written numerous peer-reviewed articles covering a range of security issues in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. She has provided testimony before Congress on several occasions and is a frequent commentator in print as well as radio and television. She is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations and is the managing editor of India Review and is on the editorial board of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.
• Kristin Haffert has directed women's programs at the NDI since 2002. Haffert advises on the development and implementation of political party, election, and civic and legislative programs to advance women's political leadership globally and has spearheaded several global initiatives and events for NDI. Prior to joining NDI, Haffert's experience included several years of campaign and public outreach work with an emphasis on encouraging women's participation in politics. She was an associate at The Lew Edwards Group, a political consulting firm specializing in grassroots organizing based in California, where she managed field campaigns throughout the state for several successful female candidates and issue campaigns. In 1998, Haffert was a fundraiser for the successful statewide re-election campaign of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin. In 1997, she collaborated with women's NGOs in South Africa to inform women of their legal rights following adoption of South Africa's new constitution in 1996. She founded a local chapter and served on the state board of the National Women's Political Caucus in the United States, and received an award from the Center for American Women and Politics for working to increase women's political participation. She received her B.A. in Political Science and was an undergraduate associate at the Eagleton Institute of Politics.
• Ambassador Karl F. Inderfurth is the John O. Rankin Professor of Practice of International Affairs at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. He served as Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs (1997-2001), Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State for Global Humanitarian Demining (1997-98) and U.S. Representative for Special Political Affairs to the United Nations, with ambassadorial rank, where he also served as Deputy U.S. Representative on the U.N. Security Council (1993-1997). Ambassador Inderfurth has worked as a national security and Moscow correspondent for ABC News (1981-91) and received an Emmy Award in 1983. He has also served on the staffs of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees and the National Security Council. He co-authored "Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council" (Oxford University Press, 2004), along with Professor Loch K. Johnson. Inderfurth is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of The Asia Foundation and served on the Board of the Landmine Survivors Network.
• Peter M. Manikas is senior associate and regional director for Asia programs at NDI. Previously, he was the Institute's chief of party in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malawi. From August 1998 to October 2000 he served in Washington, DC, as NDI's regional manager of Southern Africa programs. Manikas has been associated with NDI, first as a consultant, and later as a senior associate, since 1988. He has been involved in NDI's democratic development work in more than 20 countries. Before joining NDI full-time, he served as a consultant to the chairman of the UN Commission of Experts for the former Yugoslavia, providing advice and research on the law applicable to the conflict. He also served as a senior fellow in international human rights law at DePaul University College of Law's International Human Rights Law Institute in Chicago, Illinois, specializing in international criminal law and human rights. He is the co-author of a major treatise on the law applied by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague. He has also served as a consultant to the World Bank, the UN, and the United States Agency for International Development on human rights and anti-corruption issues. Earlier, he held the position of research social scientist at Northwestern University's Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research. He is the author of more than 20 publications on international law, elections and public policy. Manikas is a lawyer and member of the Illinois Bar.
• Karin von Hippel (chair) is codirector of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project and senior fellow with the International Security Program at CSIS. She is currently on the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Fragile States and has direct experience in over two dozen conflict zones. Previously, she was a senior research fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies, King's College London, and spent several years working for the United Nations and the European Union in Somalia and Kosovo. In 2004 and 2005, she participated in two major studies for the United Nations-one on UN peacekeeping and the second on the UN humanitarian system. Also in 2004, she was part of a small team funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to investigate the development potential of Somali remittances. In 2002, she advised the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on the role of development cooperation in discovering the root causes of terrorism. Von Hippel directed a project on European counterterrorist reforms funded by the MacArthur Foundation and edited Europe Confronts Terrorism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). She was a member of Project Unicorn, a counterterrorism police advisory panel in London. Additional publications include Democracy by Force (Cambridge, 2000), which was short-listed for the Westminster Medal in Military History. She received her Ph.D. in international relations from the London School of Economics, her M.St. from Oxford University, and her B.A. from Yale University.
• Ken Wollack is president of the National Democratic Institute and has been actively involved in foreign affairs, journalism and politics since 1972. Wollack joined NDI in 1986 as executive vice president and was elected president by the Institute's board of directors in March 1993. He has traveled extensively in Eastern and Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa on behalf of the Institute's political development programs. Before joining NDI, Wollack co-edited the Middle East Policy Survey, a Washington-based newsletter. He also wrote regularly on foreign affairs for the Los Angeles Times. From 1973 to 1980, he served as legislative director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Wollack has also been active in American politics, serving on the national staff of the McGovern presidential campaign in 1972. He graduated from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and was a senior fellow at UCLA's School for Public Affairs. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees, appeared on national television and radio, and spoken before world affairs councils across the country. He has served on various task forces sponsored by the Brookings Institution, the United States Institute of Peace, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for U.S. Global Engagement. Wollack currently is a member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid and is the chairman of the board of directors for the U.S. Committee for the United Nations Development Programme.