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The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12 brought suffering and destruction to a country that was already facing major development challenges. The situation on the ground changes daily as Haitian and international relief efforts try to help the millions of citizens who now lack food, water, medical care and shelter.
In response, members of a Haitian network of community organizing groups, or Initiative Committees (ICs), are mobilizing to support national and international relief efforts. Developed over more than a decade with NDI support, the ICs are present in 179 municipalities across the country and involve 35,000 Haitians and 3,500 civic organizations, including 400 women's groups.
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 Election experts and practitioners from 25 African nations meeting in Ghana last November called for the ratification of the African Union's charter on elections and enforcement of its standards to achieve more peaceful and credible elections on the continent.
The gathering, organized by NDI and nine other organizations, issued a communiqué with recommendations for standards that could mitigate conflict and improve election processes.
Ghana was chosen as the site for the colloquium because of its successful 2008 elections, which were considered credible, despite heated political tensions and a razor-thin margin between the presidential candidates.
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NDI has launched an innovative online mapping tool for analyzing election data from Afghanistan's flawed Aug. 20 presidential and provincial council elections. Designed to make the data more accessible and transparent, the site uses demographic, ethnographic, topographic and security information. The tool also identifies areas that had significant electoral irregularities.
Using a data browser that provides tools to manage a series of maps, filters and overlays, the site provides numerous ways to segment and visualize raw vote count data. Visitors can run customized queries with the results displayed as lists, charts and maps. The website uses all open source software and makes the data easily available for download in CSV format.
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After the Jan. 17 Ukrainian presidential election, two NDI partner groups that had observed the election issued statements hailing the vote as an improvement over the 2004 presidential poll but also citing shortcomings that they said should be addressed before the runoff on Feb. 7.
Both Opora and ENEMO highlighted procedural and organizational problems with the vote, including updates made to the voter lists on election day and uneven enforcement of provisions regarding mobile voting (voting from home). Both groups directed their recommendations to the Central Election Commission, which has jurisdiction over the issues.
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With the goals of increasing communication and fostering a network of politically active youth across Europe, NDI co-sponsored a three-day summit in Belgrade that brought together young people from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia to address issues of war crimes, rule of law, discrimination and xenophobia.
On the final day of the summit, the group released "The Belgrade Declaration," which pledged to strengthen their ties with their governments, promote new political values and use new technologies to improve communication and understanding.
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 The Bahrain Women's Union (BWU) launched an advocacy campaign last month calling for a law against domestic violence. The campaign kicked off with a march to demonstrate public support for addressing the issue, followed by a roundtable for MPs to discuss the cultural roots of domestic violence and ways to legislate against it. The Kingdom currently has no laws or government policies to address domestic violence, despite the fact that it has seen a sharp increase in domestic violence reports over the last four years.
Before the launch of the campaign, NDI worked with the activists to refine their advocacy plan and strategy for reaching key decision makers and allies.
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