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 <title>NDI - Afghanistan</title>
 <link>http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20/feed</link>
 <description />
 <language>en</language>
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 <title>NDI Afghanistan: Building Bridges</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/86lBxvhRpJA/18968</link>
 <description>&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-teaser"&gt;
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                    &lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;p&gt;As the democratic process gradually gets stronger in Afghanistan, citizens expect more jobs, social services, education opportunities for their children, improved infrastructure and health care. This short documentary film shows how political parties and elected officials are creating policy agendas that speak to citizen&amp;#39;s priorities. With support from NDI, political parties in Afghanistan are learning to become more representative of different ethnicities and develop policies reflective of constituent concerns.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;p&gt;As the democratic process gradually gets stronger in Afghanistan, citizens expect more jobs, social services, education opportunities for their children, improved infrastructure and health care. This short documentary film shows how political parties and elected officials are creating policy agendas that speak to citizen&amp;#39;s priorities. With support from NDI, political parties in Afghanistan are learning to become more representative of different ethnicities and develop policies reflective of constituent concerns.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9FkBqgA6j1I" width="420"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Published July 19, 2012&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.ndi.org/node/18968#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/175">Political Parties</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <pubDate>Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:19:47 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">18968 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/18968</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>The 2010-2015 Wolesi Jirga Directory</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/PxgBBM4nSiA/18890</link>
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              Author:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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              Publisher:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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              Published Date:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    &lt;span class="date-display-single"&gt;05/01/2012&lt;/span&gt;        &lt;/div&gt;
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              Resource Type:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    Directory        &lt;/div&gt;
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              Language:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    English        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    English        &lt;/div&gt;
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 &lt;thead&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;th&gt;Attachment&lt;/th&gt;&lt;th&gt;Size&lt;/th&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/thead&gt;
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 &lt;tr class="odd"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/AFG-2010-2015-Wolesi-Jirga-Directory.pdf"&gt;Download the directory&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;3.16 MB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
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</description>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/10">Governance</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/files/AFG-2010-2015-Wolesi-Jirga-Directory.pdf" length="3313965" type="application/pdf" />
 <pubDate>Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:25:33 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">18890 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/18890</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>NDI E-news: Women's Leadership, Zambia, Focus Group Research | October 2011</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/sFvVVr4xi68/18212</link>
 <description>&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;table align="center" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="main" style="border-width: 1px 1px medium; border-style: solid solid none;" width="600"&gt;
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				&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;img alt="NDI" border="0" height="84" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/masthead2010_opt.png" width="600" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;table align="left" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" cellpadding="20" width="99%"&gt;
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&lt;table align="left" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"&gt;
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&lt;td align="right" colspan="3"&gt;
&lt;p class="date" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0pt; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;October 2011&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p class="hdr2" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18px; text-align: left; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); line-height: 1.2; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal;"&gt;Women Seeking Leadership Roles to Make Change&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table align="right" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="share1" style="text-align: left; padding-bottom: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 15px; border-top-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-bottom-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-top-width: 5px; border-bottom-width: 5px; border-top-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid;" width="145"&gt;
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&lt;td align="left" valign="top"&gt;
&lt;h5 style="text-align: left; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px;"&gt;
																	STAY CONNECTED&lt;/h5&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="margin: 3px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_newsletter_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="https://contribute.ndi.org/civicrm/profile/edit&amp;amp;gid=5&amp;amp;reset=1" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Subscribe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="margin: 3px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_ndi-website_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;NDI Website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="margin: 3px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_facebook_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/National.Democratic.Institute" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Facebook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="margin: 3px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_twitter_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.twitter.com/ndi" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Twitter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="margin: 3px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_youtube_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/ndipublicaffairs" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="margin: 3px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/icon_flickr_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/ndidemocracy/" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Flickr&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h5 style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px;"&gt;
																	CONTRIBUTE&lt;/h5&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="margin: 3px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://contribute.ndi.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&amp;amp;id=23" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Contribute Now&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Benefits_of_Giving" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Benefits of Giving&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/NDI_Alumni" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;NDI Alumni&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Corporate_Partnership_Group" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Corporate Partnership&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;												&lt;img align="top" height="253" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/DRC-Campaign-363px.jpg" width="363" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="caption" style="margin: 5px 0pt 15px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic;"&gt;&lt;em&gt;Women running for office in the Democratic Republic of Congo learn to use &lt;a href="http://www.iknowpolitics.org/"&gt;iKNOW Politics&lt;/a&gt;. Photo courtesy of &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/65306173@N06/"&gt;NDI_DRC&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="center" style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Success without democracy is improbable. Democracy without women is impossible.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
													&amp;mdash; NDI Chairman Madeleine K. Albright&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;Around the world, women in ever-increasing numbers are taking steps to join in the political process at all levels of government. Partnering with men and supporting each other, women are running for office, rising in the ranks of political parties and advocating for issues that matter in their lives.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;In Egypt, where the first post-uprising election will begin Nov. 28, women are working to overcome obstacles presented by both law and custom to win election to the parliament that will draft the country&amp;#39;s new constitution. NDI campaign schools are helping them &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/campaign-schools-Egypt" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;learn about campaign strategies&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, message development, voter contact, public speaking and the country&amp;#39;s complex electoral code as they prepare their candidacies.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;In the Balkans, women from political parties are &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/women-in-the-balkans-work-together" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;working together across ethnic lines and national boundaries&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to inject new life into stalled politics. They are championing new education policies that will help women become more entrepreneurial and establishing networks that will help them exchange best practices and overcome barriers to women&amp;#39;s participation in politics.&lt;/p&gt;
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																	&amp;nbsp;&lt;/td&gt;
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																	&lt;img alt="Tunisian youth" height="143" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Egypt2-382px.jpg" width="221" /&gt;
&lt;p class="caption" style="margin: 5px 0pt 15px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic;"&gt;&lt;em&gt;At the campaign school in Cairo.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;In Kazakhstan, women make up 58 percent of the civil service but hold less than 9 percent of high-level positions. Women and men from across the country came together last month to draft an action plan to &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/women-in-Kazakhstan-seek-equality" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;boost opportunities for women&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to reach decision-making positions in government. The plan calls for a cabinet-level Ministry of Gender Development, creating training schools for women, encouraging women in rural areas to participate in politics and other measures.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;During the Democratic Republic of Congo&amp;#39;s last legislative elections, fewer than 1,100 of 9,000 candidates were women. To encourage more women to run in November elections, NDI held a campaign school where women interested in parliament &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/DRC-Womens-Campaign-School" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;learned what it takes to win&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Hundreds of women turned out to learn about &lt;a href="http://www.iknowpolitics.org/" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;iKNOW Politics&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, an online network dedicated to the advancement of women in politics.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p class="hdr3" style="margin: 15px 0pt 10px; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Zambia-CSEC-prelim-statement" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;In Zambia, Observers Cite Accurate Results, Peaceful Process&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="CSEC monitors" height="89" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Zambia-datacenter-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;Zambia&amp;rsquo;s Civil Society Election Coalition deployed more than 9,000 highly-trained monitors around the country to observe the voting and counting in last month&amp;rsquo;s elections.&amp;nbsp; About 1,000 of those were assigned to a nationally representative sample of polling stations. Their conclusion, stated &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Zambia-CSEC-Statement-092311.pdf" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;with great confidence,&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; was that the results announced by the Electoral Commission of Zambia accurately reflected the votes cast and that the process was generally smooth and peaceful.&amp;nbsp; &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/concerted-efforts-needed-in-Zambia" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;An NDI pre-election observation mission in August&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, led by Quett Ketumile Masire, former president of Botswana, and NDI Vice Chair Thomas Daschle, pointed out &amp;ldquo;noteworthy challenges&amp;rdquo; in the electoral environment and said the country could move forward significantly if its elections were credible and peaceful. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Zambia-CSEC-prelim-statement" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="margin: 15px 0pt 10px; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Liberia-elections-generally-peaceful" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Liberian Elections Generally Peaceful, Orderly&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="CSEC monitors" height="89" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Liberia-ECC-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;The Elections Coordinating Committee (ECC), a coalition of seven civil society organizations and a partner of NDI&amp;#39;s, fielded 2,000 election monitors to polling locations across the country to observe Liberia&amp;#39;s presidential and legislative polls. Based on preliminary reports, the ECC called the elections &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Liberia-ECC-statement-101211.pdf" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;generally peaceful and orderly,&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and urged political parties to respect the official vote totals, expected later this month. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Liberia-elections-generally-peaceful" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="margin: 15px 0pt 10px; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Key-reforms-needed-Afghanistan-elections" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Key Reforms Needed to Clean Up Afghan Elections&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Afghan votes" height="96" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Afgh_Elect_2010_cropped.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;Political and civil society representatives are calling on the Afghan government to carry out critical reforms to clean up the country&amp;#39;s fraud-plagued election system. These include increased transparency in election management bodies, improvements to political parties and a better election law. Representatives of civil society, election agencies, parliament, local government, political parties, academia and the media all worked together to come up with an action plan to advance future reforms. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Key-reforms-needed-Afghanistan-elections" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="margin: 15px 0pt 10px; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/parliamentary-monitoring-organization-survey" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Citizen Organizations Work to Bolster Parliaments and Public Engagement, Survey Finds&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Publication cover" height="125" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/pmo-cover-96px.jpg" width="95" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;A new report by NDI and the World Bank Institute examines the efforts of some 190 parliamentary monitoring organizations that are monitoring 82 parliaments around the world. These groups are helping citizens sift through and make sense of vast amounts of parliamentary information on such topics as voting records, the content of floor debates and committee deliberations to ensure that citizen interests are represented and legislators are held accountable. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/parliamentary-monitoring-organization-survey" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p class="hdr3" style="margin: 15px 0pt 10px; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Focus-Groups-in-Tunisia-Round3" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;New Focus Group Research Released in Tunisia, Kyrgyzstan, Somalia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;Public opinion research can help governments, political parties and civil society better respond to the issues citizens care about most.&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Tunisian protest" height="106" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Tunisia-peace-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;In Tunisia, where this month&amp;#39;s constituent assembly elections will be the first competitive poll in the country&amp;#39;s history, &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/node/18088" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;focus group research shows&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; a widening divide between citizens and decision-makers. Citizens are frustrated by a lack of economic opportunities and perceive political parties as debating issues unrelated to their daily lives. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Focus-Groups-in-Tunisia-Round3" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Kyrgyzstan election monitors" height="92" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/KYZ_coalition_hq_382.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;In Kyrgyzstan, where voters will choose a president Oct. 30, unemployment and corruption are top issues for voters. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/node/18087" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Focus group research&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; found that ethnic tensions were still strong, but had been supplanted by unemployment and corruption as issues of top concern. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Kyrgyzstan-focus-groups" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Somalia report cover" height="125" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Somalia-Searching-for-Peace-cover-96px.jpg" width="96" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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																&amp;nbsp;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;In Somalia, &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Somalia-Searching-for-Peace-Sept2011.pdf" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;new research&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; shows rising popular support for writing a new constitution. Somalis are eager to contribute to their country&amp;#39;s future, and want a Somali-led response to conflict and greater inclusion in the transition to a permanent government. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/somalis-eager-to-engage-in-way-forward" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="margin: 15px 0pt 10px; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Merloe-OSCE-statements" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Importance of Authentic Elections and Unhindered Election Observation Stressed at OSCE Warsaw Meeting&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="At the OSCE meeting" height="82" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/OSCE-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;Speaking for the United States at the annual human rights meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Patrick Merloe, NDI&amp;#39;s director of electoral programs, emphasized the importance of a genuinely competitive electoral process &amp;mdash; before, during and after election day. Citing Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Macedonia as examples of recent, well-run elections in the OSCE region, Merloe stressed the crucial role that citizen and international monitors have in assessing the validity of an election. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Merloe-OSCE-statements" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="margin: 15px 0pt 10px; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/president-ouattara-calls-for-reconciliation-and-security" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;President Ouattara: Reconciliation and Security Reform Key to Recovery in C&amp;ocirc;te d&amp;#39;Ivoire&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Ouattara" height="80" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Ouattara-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;The president of C&amp;ocirc;te d&amp;#39;Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, stressed the importance of reconciliation following months of violence and displacement in his country during a Washington, D.C., appearance. &amp;quot;The process will be long, but we are determined and I believe we will get there,&amp;quot; he said Sept. 23 at an event cosponsored by NDI. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/president-ouattara-calls-for-reconciliation-and-security" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more or watch the speech&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																			&lt;img alt="455 Mass Ave" height="53" name="455 Massachusetts" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/dinner2011/tents_opt.png" width="280" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;p align="center" class="hdr3" style="margin: 15px 0pt 10px; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;"&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;													Don&amp;#39;t Miss NDI&amp;#39;s 2011 Democracy Award Dinner&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 15px 0pt; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,&amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,Times,serif; font-size: 13px;"&gt;Join NDI Nov. 7 as we celebrate the Arab Spring and honor three supporters of democracy at our annual &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/2011dinner" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Democracy Award Dinner&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will give the keynote address. The W. Averell Harriman Democracy Award will posthumously honor Geraldine Ferraro, Richard Holbrooke and Charles Manatt for their lifelong commitment to democracy. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Egyptian-womens-group-wins-2011-MKA-grant" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appropriate Communication Techniques for Development (ACT)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, an Egyptian women&amp;#39;s group advocating full inclusion of women in the new Egyptian political order, will receive this year&amp;#39;s &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/albright_grant" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Madeleine K. Albright grant&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href="https://contribute.ndi.org/civicrm/event/register?id=11&amp;amp;reset=1" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Buy your ticket&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;h6 style="margin: 0pt; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"&gt;
									READ MORE&lt;/h6&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p class="read2" style="margin: 15px 0pt; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/updates/5" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Democracy Updates&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/updates/47" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Partner Spotlights&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/updates/46" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;In-Country Perspectives&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/democracydialogue" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Democracy Dialogue&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/publications" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Publications&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/employment" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Employment&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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 <comments>http://www.ndi.org/node/18212#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/9">Citizen Participation</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/173">Elections</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/10">Governance</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/174">Womens Political Participation</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/291">Egypt</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/334">Kazakhstan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/240">Cote dIvoire</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/215">DRC</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/316">Tunisia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/260">Liberia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/211">Somalia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/275">Zambia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/307">Europe: Central and Eastern</category>
 <pubDate>Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:54:53 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>ntekeei</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">18212 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/18212</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>Key Reforms Needed to Clean Up Afghan Elections</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/mUE0quEsvB4/Key-reforms-needed-Afghanistan-elections</link>
 <description>&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-teaser"&gt;
    &lt;div class="field-items"&gt;
            &lt;div class="field-item odd"&gt;
                    &lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;p&gt;More than 60 political and civil society representatives are calling on the Afghanistan government to carry out critical reforms to improve the electoral process before the country&amp;rsquo;s next round of voting in 2013.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Afghanistan&amp;rsquo;s 2009 presidential and provincial council elections and 2010 parliamentary polls were marred by widespread fraud, doubts about the independence of election authorities, a defective voter registration process and barriers to women&amp;rsquo;s participation. Domestic and international observers have said these problems must be addressed to build greater confidence in the integrity of Afghan elections.&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div class="all-attached-images"&gt;&lt;div class="image-attach-body image-attach-node-16549" style="width: 363px;"&gt;&lt;a href="/node/16549"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Afgh_Elect_2010_cropped.jpg" alt="Afghan voter 2010" title="Afghan voter 2010"  class="image image-_original " width="363" height="271" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div id='imgcaption'&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;p&gt;More than 60 political and civil society representatives are calling on the Afghanistan government to carry out critical reforms to improve the electoral process before the country&amp;rsquo;s next round of voting in 2013.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Afghanistan&amp;rsquo;s 2009 presidential and provincial council elections and 2010 parliamentary polls were marred by widespread fraud, doubts about the independence of election authorities, a defective voter registration process and barriers to women&amp;rsquo;s participation. Domestic and international observers have said these problems must be addressed to build greater confidence in the integrity of Afghan elections.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The representatives &amp;ndash; from Afghan civil society groups, election management bodies, parliament, provincial councils, political parties, academia and the media &amp;ndash; participated in a conference in Kabul Sept. 19 and 20 that focused on lessons learned from the country&amp;rsquo;s past elections. At this convening event, organized by the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) in partnership with NDI, the participants developed a &lt;a href="/files/Afghanistan-Conference-Resolution-092011-ENG.pdf"&gt;concrete plan&lt;/a&gt; to advance key reforms. These included:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		Protecting the independence of the electoral management bodies &amp;ndash; the Independent Electoral Commission, the Electoral Complaints Commission and the Candidate Vetting Commission;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		Ensuring transparency in the conduct of these electoral management bodies, with the aim of enhancing public trust and ensuring justice;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		Encouraging political parties to nominate qualified male and female candidates, and engage in transparent reporting of campaign contributions and expenses, and public and comprehensive reporting of the performance of elected representatives;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		Developing a new identification system based on a national census in order to evaluate candidates accurately and identify fake voter ID cards;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		Conducting several elections simultaneously, if possible;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		Introducing a collaborative tracking system that will show the progress of the preparations, execution and evaluation of elections as well as the performance of the election management bodies, elected institutions and key political actors; and&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		Amending articles of the election law to improve electoral transparency.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The group also appealed to the international community to continue supporting Afghan efforts to promote credible elections &amp;ndash; particularly in the areas of financial accountability, broad and inclusive political participation by voters across Afghanistan, and the political empowerment of women, minorities and persons with disabilities.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The conference and NDI&amp;rsquo;s electoral support programs in Afghanistan are funded through a grant from the United States Agency for International Development.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Related: &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		&lt;a href="/files/Afghanistan-Conference-Resolution-092011-ENG.pdf"&gt;One nation, one vote, one vision: A shared commitment to improve the electoral process in Afghanistan&amp;raquo;&lt;/a&gt;(&lt;a href="/files/Afghanistan-Conference-Resolution-092011-Dari.pdf"&gt;Dari&lt;/a&gt;|&lt;a href="/files/Afghanistan-Conference-Resolution-092011-Pashto.pdf"&gt;Pashto&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		&lt;a href="/Electoral_Reform_Needed_Afghanistan"&gt;Electoral reform needed to build public confidence in Afghan electoral process and political institutions&amp;raquo;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		&lt;a href="/Afghanistan_Voters_Show_Commitment"&gt;Despite violence, voters in Afghanistan show commitment to democratic process, NDI finds&amp;raquo;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		&lt;a href="/NDI_Launches_Website_that_Adds_Transparency_to_Afghanistan_Election_Data"&gt;NDI launches website that adds transparency to Afghanistan election data&amp;raquo;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Published Sept. 26, 2011&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.ndi.org/Key-reforms-needed-Afghanistan-elections#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/5">Democracy Updates</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/173">Elections</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/image/view/16549/preview" length="96091" type="image/jpeg" />
 <pubDate>Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:13:37 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">18050 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/Key-reforms-needed-Afghanistan-elections</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>One Nation, One Vote, One Vision: A Shared Commitment to Improve the Electoral Process in Afghanistan</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/okfYYiHFdso/18047</link>
 <description>&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-author"&gt;
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              Author:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    Participants of the “2009 and 2010 Afghan Elections: Conference on Lessons Learned and Future Directions”        &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
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              Publisher:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
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              Published Date:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    &lt;span class="date-display-single"&gt;09/20/2011&lt;/span&gt;        &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
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        &lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;table id="attachments" class="sticky-enabled"&gt;
 &lt;thead&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;th&gt;Attachment&lt;/th&gt;&lt;th&gt;Size&lt;/th&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
 &lt;tr class="odd"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-Conference-Resolution-092011-ENG.pdf"&gt;Read the resolution&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;153.42 KB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
 &lt;tr class="even"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-Conference-Resolution-092011-Dari.pdf"&gt;Read the resolution-Dari&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;83.51 KB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
 &lt;tr class="odd"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-Conference-Resolution-092011-Pashto.pdf"&gt;Read the resolution-Pashto&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;81.81 KB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
</description>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/173">Elections</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-Conference-Resolution-092011-ENG.pdf" length="157101" type="application/pdf" />
 <pubDate>Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:45:44 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">18047 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/18047</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>Key Reforms Needed to Clean Up Afghan Elections</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/TC5dcnAuoq0/18046</link>
 <description>&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-author"&gt;
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              Author:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-publisher"&gt;
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              Publisher:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    National Democratic Institute, FEFA        &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div class="field field-type-date field-field-published-date"&gt;
    &lt;div class="field-items"&gt;
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                      &lt;div class="field-label-inline-first"&gt;
              Published Date:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    &lt;span class="date-display-single"&gt;09/25/2011&lt;/span&gt;        &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
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              Resource Type:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    Press Release        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    English        &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;table id="attachments" class="sticky-enabled"&gt;
 &lt;thead&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;th&gt;Attachment&lt;/th&gt;&lt;th&gt;Size&lt;/th&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
 &lt;tr class="odd"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-elections-PR-092511.pdf"&gt;Read the release&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;135.46 KB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
 &lt;tr class="even"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-elections-PR-092511-Dari.pdf"&gt;Read the release-Dari&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;152.93 KB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
 &lt;tr class="odd"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-elections-PR-092511-Pashto.pdf"&gt;Read the release-Pashto&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;182.23 KB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
</description>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/173">Elections</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/4">Press Room</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-elections-PR-092511.pdf" length="138707" type="application/pdf" />
 <pubDate>Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:42:36 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">18046 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/18046</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>Rabbani Death May Hint at Divisions within Taliban | Sept. 21, 2011</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/LOMWkDWl-P0/18043</link>
 <description>&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Stars and Stripes &lt;/em&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.stripes.com/news/rabbani-death-may-hint-at-divisions-within-taliban-1.155800" target="_blank"&gt;|&amp;nbsp;Link to story &amp;raquo;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The conflicting responses would appear to expose divisions within the Taliban, according to Hatem Bamehriz, senior Afghanistan director of the National Democratic Institute.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;ldquo;I think what we&amp;rsquo;re seeing are the differences between the hard-liners and the moderates inside the Taliban,&amp;rdquo; Bamehriz said. &amp;ldquo;The moderates are the ones interested in peace talks; the hard-liners want to disrupt them.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.stripes.com/news/rabbani-death-may-hint-at-divisions-within-taliban-1.155800" target="_blank"&gt;Link to story&amp;nbsp;&amp;raquo;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.ndi.org/node/18043#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/22">NDI in the News</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <pubDate>Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:20:35 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">18043 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/18043</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>NDI E-news: Democracy Day, Libya, Pakistan, African Elections | Sept. 2011</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/Ei0HE-ARA6A/17982</link>
 <description>&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;table align="center" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="main" style="border-width: 1px 1px medium; border-style: solid solid none; border-color: rgb(153, 153, 153) rgb(153, 153, 153) -moz-use-text-color;" width="600"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;
				&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;img alt="NDI" border="0" height="84" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/masthead2010_opt.png" width="600" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;
&lt;table align="left" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" cellpadding="20" width="100%"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;
&lt;table align="left" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td align="right" colspan="3"&gt;
&lt;p class="date" style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 0; padding: 0pt;"&gt;Sept. 15, 2011&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td colspan="3"&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr2" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.2; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 0pt 0pt 18px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Happy Democracy Day! &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table align="right" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="share1" style="border-top: 5px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); border-bottom: 5px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 15px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;" width="145"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td align="left" valign="top"&gt;
&lt;h5 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 10px; text-align: left;"&gt;
																	STAY CONNECTED&lt;/h5&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_newsletter_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="https://contribute.ndi.org/civicrm/profile/edit&amp;amp;gid=5&amp;amp;reset=1" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Subscribe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_ndi-website_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;NDI Website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_facebook_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/National.Democratic.Institute" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Facebook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_twitter_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.twitter.com/ndi" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Twitter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_youtube_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/ndipublicaffairs" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/icon_flickr_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/ndidemocracy/" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Flickr&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h5 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 10px;"&gt;
																	CONTRIBUTE&lt;/h5&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://contribute.ndi.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&amp;amp;id=23" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Contribute Now&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Benefits_of_Giving" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Benefits of Giving&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/NDI_Alumni" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;NDI Alumni&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Corporate_Partnership_Group" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Corporate Partnership&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;												&lt;img align="top" height="242" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Democracy-day-Sudan.jpg" width="363" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="caption" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; margin: 5px 0pt 15px;"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Independence!&amp;quot; A woman casts her ballot in the January referendum creating the new country of South Sudan. Photo by Susan Stigant, senior program manager.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Sept. 15 is International Day of Democracy, an annual global celebration of human rights, the rule of law and other principles that unite democracies around the world. The day was designated by the United Nations to reaffirm the universality of democratic values and recognize the aspirations of people around the world to have a say in how they are governed and make free choices about how they live their lives.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Nowhere have those aspirations been more prominent this year than in North Africa, where popular uprisings have ousted dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. In Libya, the Institute has been working closely since April with the National Transitional Council (NTC) as &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Notes-from-Benghazi-looking-ahead" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;it creates a plan&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/a&gt; for a constitution, elections, national security and the protection of civil liberties. In a country where political parties have been outlawed and maligned for 40 years, NDI is &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Notes-from-Benghazi-political-parties" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;helping fledgling parties&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; create platforms and attract supporters. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Analysis-Campbell-Libya" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Writing in the &lt;em&gt;Washington Post&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, Les Campbell, NDI regional director for Middle East and North Africa programs, expressed optimism about the prospects of a successful transition and outlined the positive steps the council has taken already. Matyas E&amp;ouml;rsi, resident country director in Benghazi, &lt;a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/08/26/139977276/libyan-rebels-face-daunting-task-building-a-government" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;spoke to NPR&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/a&gt; about the high expectations &amp;mdash; globally and in Libya &amp;mdash; facing the country&amp;#39;s new government.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;For &lt;a href="http://blip.tv/ndiinternalmedia/25th-anniversary-film-3351413" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;more than 25 years&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, in &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/25th_anniversary_publication/index.html" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;more than 70 countries&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, NDI has worked to strengthen new and emerging democracies. This Democracy Day, consider &lt;a href="https://contribute.ndi.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&amp;amp;id=23" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;contributing to our work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and support people in North Africa and around the world who want a voice in how their countries are governed.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr color="#cccccc" width="100%" /&gt;
											&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="48%"&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Pakistan-to-extend-political-reforms-FATA" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Pakistan to Extend Political Reforms to FATA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table align="left"&gt;
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&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top"&gt;
																&lt;img alt="Pakistan FATA" height="77" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/FATA-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="10"&gt;
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&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;President Asif Ali Zardari&amp;#39;s recent decision to extend political and legal reforms to Pakistan&amp;#39;s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) is the result of a lengthy &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Pakistan-to-extend-political-reforms-FATA" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;effort by political parties and other organizations&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to bring more democratic systems of governance to a region considered a haven for militants and religious extremists. The reforms, supported by NDI, will allow political parties to form and operate in FATA for the first time, and will amend a draconian criminal code first enacted by the British in 1848.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;Ensuring Women and Young People Take Part in the Political Process&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table align="left"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top"&gt;
																&lt;img alt="Burkinabe women" height="98" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/BF-Womens-academy.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="10"&gt;
																&amp;nbsp;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Women and youth have a significant role to play in new and emerging democracies. In Sudan, &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/sudanese-youth-express-democratic-values-through-art" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;caricature art&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; helps engage young people who feel excluded from the political process. In &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Leadership-academy-Burkina-Faso" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Burkina Faso&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/YWLS-Iraq" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Iraq&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, women are learning the skills they need to run for office and build successful political careers. In Nicaragua, the &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/nicaraguan-leadership-school-graduates-first-class" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;first class of graduates&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to earn a certificate in leadership and political management are ready to start their political careers. And in Afghanistan, one young woman is helping others prepare for careers in government by &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Afghan-internship-graduate" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;starting an internship program&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; that places students in provincial council offices.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;Celebrate Democracy with these Upcoming Events&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Save the date! NDI will hold its annual democracy dinner on Nov. 7. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will headline the event, which also includes a panel discussion on the Arab Spring. The dinner and an awards ceremony will recognize those who have spent a lifetime supporting democracy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;On Sept. 23, Alassane Ouattara, president of C&amp;ocirc;te d&amp;#39;Ivoire, will speak at NDI, where he will discuss his government&amp;#39;s efforts to rebuild the country&amp;#39;s economy and foster national reconciliation in the wake of violence following last November&amp;#39;s election. This event is full, but will be&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Ouattara-event" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt; streamed live.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td width="4%"&gt;
												&amp;nbsp;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="48%"&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;Toward Better Elections in Africa&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table align="left"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top"&gt;
																&lt;img height="81" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Democracy-day-Liberia.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="10"&gt;
																&amp;nbsp;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Across Africa, countries are taking steps to ensure more transparent and accountable elections. A recent referendum in Liberia was monitored by the &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/liberia-launches-elections-coordinating-committee" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Elections Coordinating Committee&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, a civil society coalition that provided a nonpartisan assessment of the process and will monitor upcoming presidential and legislative elections. In C&amp;ocirc;te d&amp;#39;Ivoire, which recently experienced a violent crisis in the &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Cote-dIvoire-in-August-Fomunyoh" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;aftermath of its November presidential election&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, citizen election monitors gathered to discuss &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Citizen-election-observers-cote-divoire" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;their role in mitigating violence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in legislative polls scheduled for later this year. And in &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/concerted-efforts-needed-in-Zambia" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Zambia&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Mauritanians-urged-to-increase-transparency" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mauritania&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, NDI fielded delegations that assessed both countries&amp;#39; preparedness for upcoming elections and suggested improvements.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;Coming Together for Common Goals&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table align="left"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top"&gt;
																&lt;img alt="Bosnia dialogue" height="96" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Bosnia_IRG_USIP_382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="10"&gt;
																&amp;nbsp;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
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&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Democracy can&amp;#39;t solve longstanding political or cultural divisions overnight, but it can bring different groups together to discuss issues and arrive at common goals. In Bosnia, eight politicians are reaching across party and ethnic lines to tackle &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/bosnian-politician-group-cooperates-on-reform" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt; the country&amp;#39;s biggest challenges&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; together. And in Honduras, where the effects of a 2009 coup and constitutional crisis are still reverberating, a &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/leaders-work-to-restore-democratic-dialogue-in-honduras" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;series of &amp;quot;democracy dialogues&amp;quot; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is bringing people together to find common ground.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;Public Opinion Research for Better Policy Platforms&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table align="left"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top"&gt;
																&lt;img alt="Iraqi women" height="90" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Iraqi-woman-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="10"&gt;
																&amp;nbsp;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Public opinion research helps political parties and governments address the issues their constituents care about most. In Iraq, people want politicians to focus on &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Iraqis-look-to-parties-to-boost-economy" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;jobs, the economy, and water and power delivery&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. In Somalia, &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/somalis-eager-to-engage-in-way-forward" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;focus group research&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; shows that citizens are losing faith in their transitional institutions and are looking for ways to provide ideas to move their country forward. In Belarus, citizens distrust the Lukashenko regime and blame it for current economic problems. But they &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/node/17943" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;remain pessimistic&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; about the prospects for opposition parties. And in South Sudan, citizens want to &lt;a href="http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/east/SOUTH-SUDANESE-WANT-AN-END-TO-TRIBALISM-CORRUPTION-STUDY-SHOWS-128898588.html" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;end tribalism above all else&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, seeing themselves primarily as Southern Sudanese.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td align="left" colspan="3"&gt;
&lt;hr color="#cccccc" width="100%" /&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;NDI&amp;#39;s Washington Office is Moving&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;table align="left" height="167" width="200"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="250"&gt;
																	&lt;img alt="455 Mass Ave" height="117" name="455 Massachusetts" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/455MassAve.jpg" width="184" /&gt;
&lt;p class="caption" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; margin: 5px 0pt 15px;"&gt;NDI&amp;#39;s new office&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="10"&gt;
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&lt;/tr&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Update your address book! As of Sept. 19, NDI&amp;#39;s Washington, D.C., headquarters will be located at 455 Massachusetts Ave., NW, on the eighth floor. All telephone numbers will remain the same.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;table align="center" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="read2" style="border-width: 5px medium; border-style: solid none; border-color: rgb(102, 102, 102) -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0pt 20px;" width="100%"&gt;
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&lt;h6 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 16px; margin: 0pt;"&gt;
									READ MORE&lt;/h6&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td width="460"&gt;
&lt;p class="read2" style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/updates/5" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Democracy Updates&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/updates/47" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Partner Spotlights&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/updates/46" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;In-Country Perspectives&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/democracydialogue" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Democracy Dialogue&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/publications" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Publications&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/employment" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Employment&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/249">Africa: Sub Saharan Africa</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/9">Citizen Participation</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/173">Elections</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/10">Governance</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/175">Political Parties</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/174">Womens Political Participation</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/367">Youth</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/219">Bosnia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/258">Belarus</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/298">Burkina Faso</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/210">Iraq</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/240">Cote dIvoire</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/295">Libya</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/232">Mauritania</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/16">Pakistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/389">Honduras</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/260">Liberia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/205">Nicaragua</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/211">Somalia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/873">South Sudan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/296">Sudan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/275">Zambia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/194">Eurasia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/307">Europe: Central and Eastern</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/329">Latin America &amp; the Caribbean</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/259">Middle East and North Africa</category>
 <pubDate>Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:15:40 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">17982 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/17982</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>The 2010 Wolesi Jirga Elections in Afghanistan</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/9w9gFopdjwk/17965</link>
 <description>&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-author"&gt;
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              Author:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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              Published Date:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    &lt;span class="date-display-single"&gt;09/09/2011&lt;/span&gt;        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    Report        &lt;/div&gt;
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              Language:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
                    English        &lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;div class="all-attached-images"&gt;&lt;div class="image-attach-body image-attach-node-17964" style="width: 95px;"&gt;&lt;a href="/node/17964"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Untitled-1.jpg" alt="Untitled-1.jpg" title="Untitled-1.jpg"  class="image image-_original " width="95" height="123" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div id='imgcaption'&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-language-0"&gt;
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 &lt;thead&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;th&gt;Attachment&lt;/th&gt;&lt;th&gt;Size&lt;/th&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
 &lt;tr class="odd"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-2010-election-observers-final-report.pdf"&gt;Read the report&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;3.99 MB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
</description>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/83">Election Monitoring / Observing</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/173">Elections</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/138">International Election Monitoring</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-2010-election-observers-final-report.pdf" length="4179855" type="application/pdf" />
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/image/view/17964/preview" length="22770" type="image/jpeg" />
 <pubDate>Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:33:28 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">17965 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
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<item>
 <title>Afghan Internship Graduate Starts Her Own Youth Program</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/LAxyF38kIRk/Afghan-internship-graduate</link>
 <description>&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-teaser"&gt;
    &lt;div class="field-items"&gt;
            &lt;div class="field-item odd"&gt;
                    &lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;p&gt;Working as an intern in the Afghan parliament in 2007, Atifa Safi helped members and parliamentary committees write reports, take minutes, conduct research and analyze data.&amp;nbsp; She had the opportunity to contribute to the legislative process while seeing the workings of government close up, and the lawmakers benefited from the help that she and other interns provided. When she graduated from the program when it ended in 2008, she couldn&amp;rsquo;t shake the feeling that she could do more for young people.&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div class="all-attached-images"&gt;&lt;div class="image-attach-body image-attach-node-17932" style="width: 382px;"&gt;&lt;a href="/node/17932"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Safi-Afghanistan.jpg" alt="Safi-Afghanistan.jpg" title="Safi-Afghanistan.jpg"  class="image image-_original " width="382" height="280" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div id='imgcaption'&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Atifa Safi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;p&gt;Working as an intern in the Afghan parliament in 2007, Atifa Safi helped members and parliamentary committees write reports, take minutes, conduct research and analyze data.&amp;nbsp; She had the opportunity to contribute to the legislative process while seeing the workings of government close up, and the lawmakers benefited from the help that she and other interns provided.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As a fourth year student at Kabul University studying law and political science, her specific assignment was to work with the Internal Affairs and Legislative Commission, participating in its daily administrative tasks as well as providing parliamentarians with analysis on the interpretation of laws and regulations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;During the intern program, carried out by NDI in 2006-2008, 130 students participated from universities located in Kabul, Nangarhar, Bamyan and Herat provinces.&amp;nbsp; Safi was chosen from a pool of more than 700 applicants seeking the kind of lasting experience that can be gained only from an inside look at how government operates. Through the program, interns were placed in the parliament and their local government equivalent, Afghanistan&amp;rsquo;s provincial councils.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Both the participants and the institutions cited the program&amp;rsquo;s benefits. In addition to their administrative, analysis and research duties, the interns were exposed to high-ranking figures from both inside and outside of government. They attended a number of forums where key topics were discussed with high-level participants. All told, interns generated more than 30 comprehensive research papers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Safi graduated from the program when it ended in 2008 and now works at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation (FES), a nonprofit German political foundation engaged in democracy promotion and international dialogue on economic, social and political development. There, she became project coordinator for the Young Leader Forum program, which helps young people in Kabul and the provinces develop leadership skills.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But Safi couldn&amp;rsquo;t shake the feeling that she could do more for young people. &amp;ldquo;The NDI internship program was so productive for me and I learned so much from it,&amp;rdquo; she said, &amp;ldquo;that I thought to create a similar program at FES to benefit more students.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Following through on that desire and building on her own intern experiences, Safi started an FES program to place students as interns at provincial councils across the country. The councils, which are the only face of government that most Afghans ever see, range from nine to 29 members, depending on the province&amp;rsquo;s population.&amp;nbsp; The councilors&amp;rsquo; job is to ensure that citizens&amp;rsquo; views are reflected in provincial development planning; to monitor and evaluate development programs; to manage conflict among tribes, villages and districts; and to oversee provincial development spending.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Councils in the provinces of Balkh, Baghlan, Bamyan, Herat, Khost, Ningarhar and Parwan are participating in the FES internship program. As part of an initial one-year pilot program, the interns have six-month placements with those councils, for a total of 14 the first year.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
	While employment is hard to find in Afghanistan, Safi said she is hopeful that the experiences the interns are gleaning in the provinces will help them find jobs that, like hers, will contribute to democracy and good governance in the Afghanistan.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Related:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		&lt;a href="/afghan_women_seated_in_parliament"&gt;Afghan women take seats in [arliament, prepare for road ahead&amp;raquo;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		&lt;a href="/Afghan_Provincial_Councilors_Adapt_to_Growing_Role_in_Governance"&gt;Afghan provincial councilors adapt to growing role in local governance&amp;raquo;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
		&lt;a href="/node/84"&gt;Afghanistan: Parliamentary intern drafts government code of conduct&amp;raquo;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Published Aug. 29, 2011&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.ndi.org/Afghan-internship-graduate#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/10">Governance</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/46">In-Country Perspectives</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/367">Youth</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/image/view/17932/preview" length="24195" type="image/jpeg" />
 <pubDate>Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:55:36 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">17933 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/Afghan-internship-graduate</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>NDI E-news: South Sudan, Burma, Tunisia | July/August 2011</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/IGIBo2Dq-Iw/17846</link>
 <description>&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;table align="center" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="main" style="border-width: 1px 1px medium; border-style: solid solid none; border-color: rgb(153, 153, 153) rgb(153, 153, 153) -moz-use-text-color;" width="600"&gt;
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				&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;&lt;img alt="NDI" border="0" height="84" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/masthead2010_opt.png" width="600" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p class="date" style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 0; padding: 0pt;"&gt;August 2011&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p class="hdr2" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.2; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 0pt 0pt 18px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/south-sudan-post-referendum-survey-preliminary-results" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Newly Independent South Sudan Looks To Future, Permanent Constitution &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table align="right" bgcolor="#fbf8f3" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="share1" style="border-top: 5px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); border-bottom: 5px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 15px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;" width="145"&gt;
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&lt;h5 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 10px; text-align: left;"&gt;
																	STAY CONNECTED&lt;/h5&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_newsletter_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="https://contribute.ndi.org/civicrm/profile/edit&amp;amp;gid=5&amp;amp;reset=1" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Subscribe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_ndi-website_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;NDI Website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_facebook_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/National.Democratic.Institute" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Facebook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_twitter_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.twitter.com/ndi" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Twitter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;img align="left" height="16" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/enews/icon_youtube_opt.png" width="20" /&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/ndipublicaffairs" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h5 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 10px;"&gt;
																	CONTRIBUTE&lt;/h5&gt;
&lt;p class="share" style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 3px 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://contribute.ndi.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&amp;amp;id=23" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Contribute Now&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Benefits_of_Giving" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Benefits of Giving&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/NDI_Alumni" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;NDI Alumni&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
																	&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Corporate_Partnership_Group" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Corporate Partnership&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;												&lt;img align="top" height="201" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/South-Sudan-Ind-450px.jpg" width="363" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="caption" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; margin: 5px 0pt 15px;"&gt;&lt;em&gt;Children march in the independence day parade in Juba&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;South Sudan became the world&amp;#39;s newest country on July 9 after a January referendum that showed &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/SuGDE_SuNDE_Statement_PR_012011.pdf" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;overwhelming support&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; for independence. Richard Nuccio, NDI&amp;#39;s senior director in the new country&amp;#39;s capital, Juba, was invited to the independence festivities and captured the celebration &lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150252292864425.329234.170535279424" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;in photos&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. &amp;quot;It was an amazing moment and I felt very privileged to be a part of it,&amp;quot; he said later &lt;a href="http://transafrica.org/2011/07/media/multimedia/africa-now/africa-now-july-20-2011/" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;during an interview&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; on WPFW&amp;#39;s &lt;em&gt;Africa Now!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;South Sudan adopted a transitional constitution just before independence and will soon set about crafting a permanent one. NDI &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/south-sudan-women-call-for-more-inclusive-constitution" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;will work with a coalition of women&amp;#39;s civic groups&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; from throughout the country to submit recommendations for the new document. The coalition wants to be sure that gender quotas for all branches and levels of government are a part of the constitution and that full separation of powers is addressed.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;In March and April, NDI conducted the latest in a &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Focus_Groups_Sudan" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;series of focus groups&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; it has been organizing since 2004. This latest round explored &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/south-sudan-post-referendum-survey-preliminary-results" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;South Sudanese attitudes toward independence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and the future of their new country. &amp;ldquo;What we heard in the past was a focus on separation,&amp;rdquo; said Traci Cook, researcher and author of the upcoming report. &amp;ldquo;We found that they are now turning the corner and beginning to look internally.&amp;rdquo; &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Post-Referendum-South-Sudan-Study-Preliminary-Results.pdf" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Participants saw themselves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; as South Sudanese first and foremost, and want to move past tribal discrimination and corruption in the new government.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/ken-wollack-returns-to-burma-after-16-years" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;NDI President Wollack Reflects on Returning to Burma after 16 Years&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Wollack in Burma" height="98" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Ken-in-Burma.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;In June, NDI President Kenneth Wollack traveled to Burma to meet with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders. Wollack reports that little in the country has changed since his last visit, but that Suu Kyi remains the unflappable and optimistic leader he met in 1995. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/ken-wollack-returns-to-burma-after-16-years" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Aswat-community-connects-activists" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Aswat Community Connects Activists in the Middle East and North Africa&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Tunis Graffiti" height="81" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Facebook-Thanks-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;The Arab Spring uprisings have underscored the impact that social media can have on advancing democracy. As early as 2005, NDI recognized social media&amp;#39;s potential and launched &lt;a href="https://www.aswat.com/" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Aswat&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, an online community for those in the Middle East and North Africa looking to make governments more responsive, transparent and effective. Now, recognizing the additional responsibilities and challenges facing citizen reporters, Aswat is training them on journalistic ethics and professional standards. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Aswat-community-connects-activists" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/nicaraguan-monitoring-group-launches-website" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Civic Group Invites Nicaraguan Citizens to Participate in Election Monitoring&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Viva el voto screenshot" height="116" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Viva-el-voto-launch-screenshot2.JPG" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;A &lt;a href="http://www.vivaelvoto.com/" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;new website&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; launched by the Nicaraguan group Ethics and Transparency allows citizens to report any electoral problems that might compromise the November national elections. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/nicaraguan-monitoring-group-launches-website" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/node/17764" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;New Report: Political Parties in Afghanistan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Afghan political parties cover" height="125" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Afghanistan-political-parties-cover.jpg" width="96" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Based on 90 interviews with party representatives and civil society, this new report explores how Afghan political parties view themselves, what kinds of assistance would serve them best and ways they might work together in the future. Parties see themselves primarily as supporting individual candidates, rather than an ideology, and focus their activities on elections instead of planning party strengthening activities between polls. The review also revealed that Afghan parties are highly interested in modernizing their internal structures and promoting cross-party cooperation. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/node/17764" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
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												&amp;nbsp;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" width="48%"&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Focus-Groups-in-Tunisia-Round2" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Opinion Research Shows Tunisians Concerned About the Future&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Tunisian youth protest" height="98" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Tunisia-youth-protest-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Six months into their political transition, Tunisians are concerned about high levels of unemployment, according to the latest round of focus group research conducted by NDI. Tunisians are also concerned about personal security, but are more optimistic about gains in freedoms of expression and association. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Focus-Groups-in-Tunisia-Round2" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/New-library-helps-MPs-Liberia" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;New Library Helps Liberian MPs Write Legislation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Liberia library opening" height="90" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Liberia-LIS-ribbon-cutting-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;A new library and research service in the Liberian parliament is helping lawmakers write legislation. Among them is Senator Gloria Musu Scott, who wanted to draft a bill providing domestic partnership benefits for those in common law marriages. So she visited Liberia&amp;#39;s new Legislative Information Service (LIS) to find how other countries have handled the issue and conducted an Internet search that turned up similar laws in several U.S. states. This type of information would not have been available until the library opened a few months ago. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/New-library-helps-MPs-Liberia" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="hdr3" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(153, 51, 0); margin: 15px 0pt 10px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Mauritanian-parliament-seeks-citizen-input" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Mauritanian Parliament Seeks Citizen Input for Social Security Reform&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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																&lt;img alt="Mauritania meeting" height="94" src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Mauritania-social-security-hearing-382px.jpg" width="125" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;Social security is a hotly debated topic in Mauritania. The current system is expensive, and the government is facing choices on whether to raise taxes, cut services or restructure the program. Rather than operating behind closed doors, the parliament has sought citizen input, holding a public meeting and asking leaders from civil society organizations to weigh in with their policy ideas. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Mauritanian-parliament-seeks-citizen-input" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read more&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;As Mauritanians prepare for parliamentary and municipal elections tentatively scheduled for the fall, keep up with the latest political analysis and developments by subscribing to the &lt;em&gt;Mauritania Elections Bulletin&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/Mauritania-election-bulletin" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Subscribe&amp;raquo;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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									READ MORE&lt;/h6&gt;
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&lt;p class="read2" style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 15px 0pt;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/updates/5" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Democracy Updates&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/updates/47" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Partner Spotlights&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/updates/46" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;In-Country Perspectives&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/democracydialogue" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Democracy Dialogue&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/publications" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Publications&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/employment" style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"&gt;Employment&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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</description>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/249">Africa: Sub Saharan Africa</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/9">Citizen Participation</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/176">Democracy and Technology</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/173">Elections</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/10">Governance</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/175">Political Parties</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/174">Womens Political Participation</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/323">Burma</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/232">Mauritania</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/316">Tunisia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/260">Liberia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/205">Nicaragua</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/873">South Sudan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/329">Latin America &amp; the Caribbean</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/259">Middle East and North Africa</category>
 <pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:51:47 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">17846 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/17846</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>Political Parties in Afghanistan: A Review of the State of Political Parties after the 2009 and 2010 Elections</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/PZMHaKtyzwg/afghanistan-political-parties-report</link>
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                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    &lt;span class="date-display-single"&gt;07/13/2011&lt;/span&gt;        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    PDF        &lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;div class="all-attached-images"&gt;&lt;div class="image-attach-body image-attach-node-17765" style="width: 96px;"&gt;&lt;a href="/node/17765"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.ndi.org/files/images/Afghanistan-political-parties-cover.jpg" alt="Afghanistan-political-parties-cover.jpg" title="Afghanistan-political-parties-cover.jpg"  class="image image-_original " width="96" height="124" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div id='imgcaption'&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-language-0"&gt;
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 &lt;tr class="odd"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-political-parties-july-2011.pdf"&gt;Read the report&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;733.3 KB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
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</description>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/411">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/54">Political Parties</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/175">Political Parties</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/301">Political Parties</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-political-parties-july-2011.pdf" length="750897" type="application/pdf" />
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 <pubDate>Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:56:27 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>rrunyan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">17764 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/afghanistan-political-parties-report</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>Moving Forward in Afghanistan</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/k93okfFlWmU/17716</link>
 <description>&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-source"&gt;
      &lt;div class="field-label"&gt;Source:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
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                    MacLean&amp;#039;s        &lt;/div&gt;
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      &lt;div class="field-label"&gt;Article Link:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
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                    &lt;a href="http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/06/28/moving-forward-in-afghanistan/" target="_blank"&gt;Read More&lt;/a&gt;        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    &lt;span class="date-display-single"&gt;06/28/2011&lt;/span&gt;        &lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;!--paging_filter--&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this article for MacLean's, Grant Kippen, a member NDI's international observer mission to Afghanistan's Parliamentary elections in September 2010, asserts that the recent ruling of the Special Elections Court that called for nearly 1/4 of the Parliament to be removed from office only serves to undermine the legitimate Constitutional authority of the Independent Election Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission. Kippen urges restraint in this crisis so that personal feelings over past events do not supersede the more important goal of rebuilding Afghanistan. &lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.ndi.org/node/17716#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/173">Elections</category>
 <pubDate>Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:50:16 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator />
 <guid isPermaLink="false">17716 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/17716</feedburner:origLink></item>
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 <title>NDI Condemns Afghanistan Terrorist Attack and Mourns Loss of Those Killed in Kandahar</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/h7Q1UEUjHUs/17625</link>
 <description>&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-author"&gt;
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                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    &lt;span class="date-display-single"&gt;04/01/2009&lt;/span&gt;        &lt;/div&gt;
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 &lt;tr class="odd"&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-PR-040109.pdf"&gt;Read the release&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;135.02 KB&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;
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</description>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/4">Press Room</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-PR-040109.pdf" length="138265" type="application/pdf" />
 <pubDate>Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:53:02 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">17625 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
<feedburner:origLink>http://www.ndi.org/node/17625</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
 <title>NDI Fields Election Observation Mission  For Afghanistan Presidential and Provincial Council Elections</title>
 <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ndi-Afghanistan/~3/Bt5sz-r7zGo/17602</link>
 <description>&lt;div class="field field-type-text field-field-author"&gt;
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                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    National Democratic Institute        &lt;/div&gt;
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                    &lt;span class="date-display-single"&gt;08/15/2009&lt;/span&gt;        &lt;/div&gt;
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</description>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/20">Afghanistan</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/173">Elections</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/4">Press Room</category>
 <category domain="http://www.ndi.org/taxonomy/term/11">Asia</category>
 <enclosure url="http://www.ndi.org/files/Afghanistan-observer-PR-081509.pdf" length="92053" type="application/pdf" />
 <pubDate>Tue, 31 May 2011 22:06:37 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fstovall</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">17602 at http://www.ndi.org</guid>
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