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Through targeted initiatives in 2024-2025, WFD Maldives has enhanced the institutional capacity of political actors in the country and helped create more inclusive spaces for women’s leadership both within parliament and in the broader political landscape.
WFD's key achievements in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2024–2025 include strengthening legislative transparency and accountability, advancing inclusive political reforms, enhancing oversight of public debt, supporting women’s political leadership, deepening engagement with civil society, and promoting environmental democracy in climate action.
As we mark another World Environment Day, one truth remains clear: addressing climate change requires not just ambitious targets, but robust democratic oversight to ensure they're met.
Democratic governance is critical for achieving climate goals. On World Environment Day (5 June), discover WFD’s recent achievements in supporting more ambitious democratic action on climate and the environment.
Throughout the Grant-in-Aid (GIA) programme, WFD’s work has focused on strengthening the role of parliament in promoting democracy, enhancing public debt oversight, supporting women’s political leadership, and fostering civil society engagement. In the past quarter, these efforts have led to several significant milestones.
WFD's key achievements in the Western Balkans in 2024-2025 are supporting the inclusive, accountable political systems that underpin sustainable outcomes - from ending corruption to preventing violence against women.
There is a global crisis in political finance, where malign interests can distort democratic processes through unregulated donations and foreign interference. New Standards for Integrity in Political Finance, however, are already influencing reforms and WFD is supporting their implementation. By addressing corruption and financial barriers in politics, these standards can restore public trust and ensure democracy represents all citizens, not just those with financial power.
From January to March 2025, WFD’s Grant-in-Aid (GIA) programme in Kenya advanced key reforms to strengthen legislative transparency and accountability. Highlights included supporting corruption-proofing of legislation, fostering long-term policy planning in the Senate, and enhancing public debt oversight in the National Assembly.
To support parliament in its efforts to address Sri Lanka’s severe economic crisis and ensure sustainable and inclusive economic transformation, WFD Sri Lanka convened the Coalition for Inclusive Impact, which included MPs, political party members, media, civil society, and underrepresented groups. The group made recommendations for the recovery, including conducting an assessment of health sector policies that revealed that public-private partnerships could reduce the burden on Sri Lanka’s health sector.
The FCDO-funded Nigeria Open Political Party (NOPP) project is advancing inclusive political reform and accountability in Nigeria. Highlights include the launch of the Political Party Performance Index, the rollout of post-legislative scrutiny in Oyo State, and progress on disability inclusion. The project continues to promote democratic innovation across parties and institutions.
Over the past 14 years, WFD has partnered with the Moroccan Parliament to advance democratic governance through accountability, transparency, and inclusion. This article highlights ten key achievements—among many—that reflect the progress and enduring impact of this collaboration.
With WFD’s support, in 2024, the Election Commission of Sri Lanka formed a collaborative, multi-stakeholder taskforce to enforce the Regulation of Election Expenditure Act (REEA), Sri Lanka’s first ever campaign finance law. WFD also supported country's first online monitoring tool to track campaign expenditure.
The Parliamentorship Initiative brought together 20 members of the UNICEF Youth Advisory Board in Serbia, all aged 15 to 25, who were paired with 11 MPs from nine different parliamentary groups, including both ruling and opposition parties. These MPs mentored the young people, guiding them through the intricacies of policy-making and parliamentary processes.
With public debt rising around the world, effective parliamentary oversight has never been more essential. Recognising this, Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) is leading efforts to generate insight and craft and deploy global tools that empower parliaments to play their rightful oversight role.
As artificial intelligence fuels cheaper, more sophisticated information manipulation campaigns, long-term, trusted, cross-border partnerships offer the most sustainable defence against rising coordinated threats to democratic information integrity.