#program update

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( 2025/04/28 )

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Washington, D.C. – The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded Democracy International (DI) the Responsive Local Governance (RLG) Activity in Bangladesh. This multi-year initiative, concluding in 2029, aims to promote sustainable governance practices, strengthen citizen trust in local government institutions, and enhance civic participation.

The RLG Activity will focus on improving accountability and service delivery in critical sectors, including education, healthcare, and economic development. By fostering transparency and effective local governance, DI aims to support Bangladesh in empowering communities and elevating citizen voices in decision-making processes.

“DI is proud to lead this transformative initiative, empowering citizens and civil society in Bangladesh to engage with their elected representatives and drive positive change,” said Eric Bjornlund, DI President and CEO.

DI looks forward to advancing sustainable development alongside the people of Bangladesh, partnering with USAID to strengthen democratic principles and foster resilient, inclusive growth at this pivotal moment in Bangladesh's political journey —a time of both challenges and opportunities.

DI Vice President of Programs Naomi Rasmussen added, "We're thrilled to partner with USAID on the RLG Activity, which builds on DI's work in Bangladesh since 2011. This is a crucial time in the country's history, particularly for governance and accountability initiatives. We are privileged to be a part of this process and look forward to supporting Bangladesh’s leaders to write the next chapter."

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Washington, D.C. – The United States Agency for International Development Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization’s Office of Transition Initiatives (USAID/CPS/OTI) has awarded Democracy International (DI) the Support Which Implements Fast Transition (SWIFT) 6 indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract. This 10-year, multi-award contract, with a $5 billion shared ceiling, is designed to advance U.S. foreign policy by promoting stability, peace, and democracy in countries and regions facing complex political crises. 

“DI is honored to partner with the USAID CPS Office of Transition Initiatives on this critical contract,” said DI President and CEO Eric Bjornlund. “We are committed to working closely with USAID/CPS/OTI to support communities around the world as they navigate political transitions and to foster environments where stability, peace, and democracy can thrive.” 

DI is excited to join SWIFT 6 and embody the one-team ethos, working hand in glove with USAID/CPS/OTI to address key challenges facing countries in transition worldwide.  

“Partnership is at the heart of what we do, and we are thrilled to work together with USAID/CPS/OTI to tackle some of the hardest challenges in the world today,” added DI Senior Vice President Evan Smith. “By bringing fresh perspectives and a results-driven approach, we’re focused on delivering great work—and continuously raising the bar.” 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded Democracy International (DI) the Central America Regional Support Services (CARSS) indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract. This seven-year, multi-award mechanism aims to provide USAID missions in Central America with integrated service solutions, addressing root causes of migration, including economic opportunity, governance, transparency, climate change, crime, and insecurity. 

Collaborating with major partners, J.E. Austin Associates and Research Triangle Institute International, Democracy International is poised to bring exceptional expertise to the CARSS initiative. Under this mechanism, USAID can leverage DI’s evidence-based, context-specific, and behaviorally informed approaches to: 1) address economic insecurity and foster opportunities for economic growth; 2) strengthen democratic governance, reduce gender-based violence, promote respect for human rights and a free press, and address migration dynamics; 3) improve resilience to climate, food security, and health threats; and 4) strengthen the capacity of local partners and provide technical and management expertise to USAID Missions.  

“Having worked in the region for more than 20 years, we look forward to strengthening existing partnerships and forging new ones with regional activists, indigenous groups, government officials, and others to address these critical issues,” said DI President and CEO Eric Bjornlund. “We are excited to do our part to advance democratic, inclusive, prosperous, and healthy societies.” 

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By: Nicholas Battaile, Program Management Associate

Trust between people and their government is one of the essential underpinnings of functioning democracies. Research and evidence from around the world underscore that low public trust undermines citizens' willingness to engage in civic participation, which in turn reduces the accountability of government institutions. The result is a feedback loop that continually weakens trust. Although efforts to encourage transparency sound like a straightforward solution to address dwindling public trust, they have a mixed record of success. As Democracy International’s Kassidy Irvan wrote in her three-part blog covering trust at the municipal level, building lasting trust between officials and their constituents requires more than simply working to increase local governments’ transparency. People hold established, multifaceted views of their governments; many things influence public trust beyond the degree to which government shares information about its operations. Social and behavioral science research suggests that people's trust in government depends on the extent to which they perceive public servants as benevolent, competent, and honest. While the root of public distrust in municipal government may vary from case to case, interventions seeking to improve public confidence should always consider these three essential components of trust.

One approach aligned with this insight, called “intergroup contact intervention,” involves facilitating interaction between members of different groups to help diminish prejudices and encourage collaboration. In doing so, groups may see each other as more willing to cooperate and capable of arriving at a common ground. In other words, intergroup contact intervention often improves the group members’ perceptions of others’ benevolence and competence. This approach becomes more complicated, however, in situations where there is an imbalance of power between conflicting groups. Without addressing such a power disparity, intergroup contact can be completely counterproductive. When facilitating intergroup contact, it is imperative to level the playing field for all participants by establishing a fair process and preventing any one side from dominating the interaction. The U.S. Agency for International Development’s Social Contract Activity in Kosovo, which DI implements, offers a programmatic illustration of how practitioners can apply an intergroup contact intervention to build trust between citizens and their municipal governments.

The Social Contract Activity has been ongoing in five pilot municipalities since the beginning of 2022 and is scaling up to include an additional 10 municipalities.[1] The core objective of the Social Contract Activity is to improve the relationship between Kosovo citizens and their municipal governments, particularly by establishing sustainable public participation practices supported by officials and citizen groups. The issue of trust runs both ways in this environment. While citizens distrust existing public participation mechanisms and doubt local governments’ interest in genuine engagement, a significant number of municipal officials perceive citizens as lacking the competence or motivation to take advantage of civic engagement opportunities.

To better understand the perspectives of both citizens and municipal officials, the Social Contract Activity team conducted assessments exploring both sides’ beliefs about the underlying causes of municipal service delivery challenges. These assessments aimed to draw out the perceived barriers and enablers to public participation among citizens and officials. They also sought to delineate the roles that key stakeholders play in each community’s public participation process. Through two rounds of workshops, the first with municipal officials (referred to as Behavioral Harvest Workshops) and the next with citizens (referred to as Interactive Workshops), the team learned about factors distinct to each municipality that deterred or aided cooperation between officials and citizens.[2] Following the assessments, the Social Contract Activity team facilitated a subsequent round of workshops in each municipality, bringing municipal officials and citizens together to identify entry points for introducing effective, feasible public participation practices. The workshop participants selected at least two issues that they agreed could be addressed through active public participation. Then, the team worked with participants to formulate action-oriented plans (Social Contract Agendas) to resolve each issue and sustain emerging valuable public participation practices beyond the life of the program.

By introducing intergroup contact interventions in the form of the Social Contract Agenda workshops, positive interactions emerged between municipal officials and citizens, offering an opportunity to reshape participants’ perceptions of each other as reliable local partners, even in the face of initial mutual distrust. Through collaborative activities, citizens and officials could reevaluate whether the other group was benevolent enough to genuinely engage on community issues and competent enough to cooperatively resolve those issues. To avoid the interference of the obvious power imbalance between government officials and private citizens, workshop participants selected Social Contract Agenda issues by voting.

Each citizen had an equal say in deciding where they wanted to effect change in their community, reinforcing the perceived honesty of the process and those involved. Speaking after the completion of the Agenda workshops in the Municipality of Gjilan, one of the citizens said, “The objectives of this agenda help to openly support cooperation between municipal officials and citizens to solve their current problems, to help municipal officials and citizens to better understand their duties, and to build trust between the citizens and the municipal administration, which seems like a very small step but carries a lot of weight.”

A year after finalizing the Social Contract Agendas in the Activity’s pilot municipalities, officials and citizens are making steady progress in addressing their chosen community issues and have instituted public participation methods beyond the Agendas and the Social Contract Activity. For example, the Social Contract Activity helped the pilot municipalities introduce the practice of participatory budgeting, a process by which citizens vote on subjects that they want officials to spend a percentage of the municipal budget on. The municipalities have since replicated the process by their own initiative. The mayor of Prizren described the process as

enhancing opportunities for citizen inclusion in the budget planning process, which has led to an increase in confidence in the institutions of the Municipality of Prizren. As a result, citizens have more information on the municipal budget planning processes and an increased awareness of the way their direct participation contributes to joint decision-making.

This is an encouraging demonstration of the potential for countering the harmful feedback loop of public distrust by providing a setting for positive interaction.

[1] The pilot municipalities of the Social Contract Activity are Gjilan, Obiliq, Pristina, Prizren, and Suhareka.

[2] The Social Contract Activity team intends for the Behavioral Harvest Workshops to 1) leave municipal officials with an understanding of social and behavioral science and its potential in helping them complete their objectives, 2) identify an objective to focus on and behavior(s) that must change to achieve it, and 3) identify influences on the target behavior(s).;

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded Democracy International (DI) the Compliance and Capacity Support for Diverse Partnerships (CCSDP) Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. The five-year mechanism from the Local, Faith, and Transformative Partnerships Hub of USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Development, and Innovation, which has a $250 million shared ceiling, represents a significant milestone in DI’s effort to advance effective and inclusive development partnerships. The CCSDP IDIQ aims to ensure that local partners and governments have the capabilities and resources to serve as prime partners for USAID programming and supports USAID Missions to improve and expand local partnerships.

“We are deeply honored to be selected as a holder of the CCSDP IDIQ mechanism,” said DI President and CEO Eric Bjornlund. “This recognition underscores DI’s dedication to working with USAID to advance localization approaches that contribute to the sustainability and effectiveness of development initiatives.” 

In partnership with Abt Associates and KPMG International, DI is ready to collaborate with USAID Missions and Operating Units globally to implement CCSDP programming. Through this IDIQ, USAID can leverage DI’s evidence-based approaches to localization.  DI and its partners offer services including monitoring, evaluation, and learning; risk mitigation; and tailored capacity strengthening for local actors. 

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TAMALE, GHANA — Democracy International (DI) and Norsaac, a community-based organization focused on human rights and policy in Ghana, launched a transformative project aimed at improving accountability in local public service delivery as part of the $17.5 million Performance Accountability Activity (PAA) funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). DI implements the PAA in close collaboration with Government of Ghana partners and local civil society organizations (CSOs), including Norsaac, in 70 districts across Ghana’s 10 regions.

DI and Norsaac began this endeavor with more than 20 regional and district-level sensitization workshops, which are designed to inform key stakeholders about the project's objectives, scope, strategic approach, and anticipated accomplishments. To introduce the project to key state and nonstate stakeholders, identify opportunities, anticipate potential barriers, and explore strategies to overcome these challenges while ensuring the project's long-term sustainability, DI and Norsaac convened five regional workshops bringing together diverse stakeholders from the Northern, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West, and Northeast regions. These stakeholders included the Regional Coordinating Councils; Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies; local CSOs such as Grameen and Community Development Alliance; and representatives from USAID/Ghana’s Democracy, Rights and Governance Office. DI and Norsaac also conducted 18 district-level workshops.

Despite efforts by the government and partners to improve the quality and accountability of local public service delivery, Ghana continues to grapple with persistent challenges in delivering public services related to education, water, sanitization and healthcare, agriculture, and fisheries. The PAA, characterized by its inclusive, sustainable, collaborative, and behavior-driven approaches, promises to deliver immediate and lasting effects.

In a statement delivered at the workshop in Tamale, DI Deputy Chief of the Party Linda Ofori-Kwafo emphasized the project's core objectives, which include increasing citizen demand for responsive service delivery, enhancing government service efficiency through robust regulatory standards, and empowering local-level public service providers to uphold quality standards by strengthening the connection between Ghanaian values and performance standards. The PAA will enhance the capacity of government partners, including ministries, agencies, and district assemblies in 70 focus districts, as well as civil society and community-based organizations to implement behavior-led capacity-building and institutional strengthening interventions.

During the event in Tamale, Alhaji Alhassan Shani, the Northern Regional Minister, stressed the importance of districts involving citizens in all their activities and underlined the necessity of accountability and transparency. He commended the PAA, recognizing its potential to enhance public service delivery at the local level, and expressed full support for its implementation. Mr. Shani called upon the Regional Coordinating Council, chiefs, queen mothers, media, and all stakeholders to contribute to the successful implementation of the program.

By: DI's Elections and Democracy Activity Team

Democracy International (DI) announced today that it is re-deploying its specialized observation mission by sending three of its observers to witness the re-run in Beo Lontuo, Nimba County District 4 for the 2023 General Elections for the President, Senate, and House of Representatives in Liberia. Liberians voted on October 10, 2023. The National Elections Commission announced that elections are being re-run at two polling places in this location because two ballot boxes were stolen and destroyed by members of the public, and other boxes were damaged during the incident. This mission follows that deployed by DI on October 10, 2023, with 25 observers to six counties (Bomi, Bong, Grand Cape Mount, Margibi, Montserrado, and Nimba) in 19 of the country’s 73 electoral districts.

In its October 14, 2023, preliminary statement following Election Day, DI commended the Liberian people for their high turn-out, reported by the NEC on October 18, 2023, to be 78.8% with most, but not all, tallies complete. With 1,833,189 valid votes out of 1,947,786 cast tallied thus far, DI notes the 5.88% rate of invalid ballots (114,597) is similar to the African average and past Liberian elections. Given the challenges of running elections in Liberia and doing so independently for the first time since the civil wars, the NEC and the Liberian electorate have reason to feel proud of the process thus far.

DI again congratulates the National Elections Commission and the NEC poll workers for their professional delivery of these elections, despite the many challenges of doing so. DI trusts that the Beo Lontuo re-run elections will continue the national experience of a predominantly peaceful election.

The mission continues to demonstrate international support for the Liberian people in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The mission also contributes to DI’s ongoing work in Liberia, including with the National Elections Commission and the Election Coordinating Committee, a leading Liberian election observation group. DI works closely with Liberian organizations to encourage greater participation of marginalized groups, including women and youth, and deliver voter education nationwide. DI is organizing this mission in accordance with the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, declared at the United Nations in 2005.

The Elections and Democracy Activity is a five-year, USAID-funded project designed to help Liberia overcome challenges facing its developing democracy by fostering inclusive, sustainable, democratic political development. Implemented by DI, EDA is cultivating a new cadre of accountable, diverse, inclusive leaders in Liberia to govern in the interest of their constituents as well as active, knowledgeable citizens that demand accountability. EDA works with the Government of Liberia and civil society organizations to achieve this through three interrelated objectives:

Increase leadership of marginalized groups in political processes,

Improve civic knowledge and sense of civic duty,

Advance self-reliance of the National Election Commission and civil society organizations to independently manage and observe all stages of the electoral cycle.