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.

For the past eight years, Paul Rowland has been NDI’s resident representative to Indonesia. During his time in Jakarta, he has overseen a broad portfolio of programs in legislative strengthening, political party development, peace-building and citizen participation in the world’s most populous Muslim majority country. His work with the Institute has taken him to 29 countries on four continents.

Mr. Rowland has been an accredited international observer to more than 20 elections with NDI. He has been engaged in election integrity programs since he joined the Institute 13 years ago and has led programs that have provided technical assistance to more than a dozen domestic monitoring organizations. He has worked extensively in conflict areas in the Balkans and in Asia including Afghanistan, Nepal and Timor Leste. In 2009, he served as mission director for NDI’s election monitoring mission to the Afghanistan presidential elections.

Prior to moving to Indonesia, Mr. Rowland lived in Belgrade and served for six years as director of the Institute’s Serbia program, engaging civil society and political party activists prior to the fall of the Milosevic regime, later working to strengthen government institutions with the new reform administration that came to power in 2000.

Mr. Rowland's professional political experience dates back to 1984. As a field organizer, he worked for the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) in seven provinces and one territory. Over a 12-year period, Mr. Rowland managed numerous federal and provincial-level campaigns across Canada on behalf of the NDP. In his time with the party, he also served as a fundraiser, membership recruiter, convention coordinator and a candidate for federal office.

He spent several years working on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, first as a legislative assistant and later as a chief of staff to federal members of parliament where he managed legislative strategy, constituency relations, research projects and external communications.

Immediately prior to joining NDI, Mr. Rowland had a modest practice as communications consultant with private and public sector clients including the government of British Columbia.

Mr. Rowland lives in Jakarta.