News
The Parliamentary Budget Office in North Macedonia established with the support of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy by the end of 2019 organised its first presentation to the members of parliament. The PBO presented its work and their first analysis оn the latest macroeconomic indicators to the newly established Parliament in the country. The presentation […]
by Franklin De Vrieze, WFD’s Senior Governance Adviser Human rights violators should be scared. More and more democratic countries are holding them individually accountable for their crimes and are issuing individual so-called ‘Magnitsky Sanctions’ to target them where it hurts most: their pockets and their freedom to travel. The UK Government is seizing assets in Britain […]
by Dr Graeme Ramshaw, WFD’s Director of Research and Evaluation The international development community has been going about its governance support work all wrong. At least, that is what political thinker Karl Popper would have said. For decades, UKAid and others have been focused on the question of who should govern, deploying significant resources to […]
A strong, healthy democracy needs constant care and attention, even in good times. During a crisis we need to be even more vigilant. The COVID-19 pandemic has hurt democracy, amid a long-term trend of democratic decline. However, we know that democracy is key to solving the major challenges facing the world in 2020. Democracy can […]
WFD’s Annual Report and Accounts for the financial year 2019-2020 was laid in the UK Parliament today, 10 September 2020. In 2019-20, WFD ran 81 programmes in 47 countries. We launched new programmes in countries such as Sudan, where we trained women political leaders in negotiating to help them play an important role in the […]
This briefing for parliamentarians and policymakers is a resource for informed parliamentary debates on sexual and gender equality. It provides an overview of terminology around LGBT+ persons and their rights. It addresses common myths and arguments used by policymakers and in parliamentary equality debates to maintain the status quo when it comes to criminalisation, access […]
Political parties in Kyrgyzstan signed a Memorandum of Understanding outlining principles guiding their behaviour, including avoiding Hate Speech, during the parliamentary election campaign.
In the Western Balkans, Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) works towards the improvement of the social-political environment on a range of issues including the strengthening of participative processes and inclusion of marginalised groups in decision making, improving the work of the parliaments in the region and supporting political parties to become more professional and more […]
By Anthony Smith, WFD’s Chief Executive In the short time since the Prime Minister announced the creation of a new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my former colleagues in both the FCO and DFID have been working hard to prepare for its launch tomorrow. But determining the culture of FCDO will be a multi-year task […]
Governments should consider innovative measures such as widely distributing polling stations to safeguard democratic processes during the Covid-19 pandemic. That is the key recommendation from the British Academy’s new briefing on elections, published on 19 August, which WFD colleagues and partners contributed to. Drawing upon existing experience of elections held during the COVID-19 pandemic and […]
Matthew Hedges, who was until recently Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Paraguay, will take the reigns as Westminster Foundation for Democracy’s Regional Director for Asia and the Americas in September 2020. He will be responsible for the strategy, programming and team management across both regions. Matthew joins Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) following two decades as […]
Celebrations for International Youth Day (IYD) 2020 on 12 August may have gone virtual, but young people are still the big stars. IYD 2020 comes in the shape of a virtual podcast discussion, delivered from youth to youth, alongside creative artists. Nowadays, there are more young people as a proportion of the population than ever […]
