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Policy Recommendations

Explore all the policy recommendations 

Fitler Type
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Type: Prevent
  • There should be greater coordination between all the different mediation and peacekeeping initiatives run by the UN, the League of Arab States, the African Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the EU and the USA—through the Good Offices of Special Envoys and high-level representatives—in addressing the ongoing security challenges, mediation and post-conflict management, especially in fragile countries and countries in transition, such as Sudan and Yemen.

Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • Action must be taken that will improve public trust in the integrity of electoral processes and greater participation in elections. Among other things, EMBs should adopt more transparent and effective rules on campaign finance, and should also develop more effective enforcement mechanisms of those rules, as well as robust civic and voter education.
Region: Global
Type: Prevent
  • Parliaments, judiciaries, EMBs, government ministries and CSOs should make greater efforts to engage with peer organizations operating in other contexts to learn from each other. Academia, legislative research organs, civil society and think tanks should promote research and knowledge exchange that focus on understanding the causes of democratic backsliding in all kinds of democracies, and develop prevention strategies, such as early warning systems that help practitioners and policymakers design well-timed interventions in advance of serious democratic decline.
Region: Global
Type: Prevent
  • National and local governments should prevent democratic backsliding by investing in civic education about democratic values, rights and responsibilities. Schools and universities should offer students exposure to the inner workings of democratic institutions.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Regional and global organizations with member states should set higher standards for member democracies so that any actions seeking to weaken or dismantle internal democratic bulwarks have serious consequences.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • National and local governments, with the support of civil society, should strengthen communication channels between citizens and their representatives and enable spaces for deliberation and monitoring by civil society.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • While the scale and severity of crises may vary, managing known and unknown electoral risks will be easier if structural arrangements and responsive behaviours are in place to address them.
Region: Global
Type: Prevent
  • EMBs should develop the capacity to improve the integrity of special voting arrangements after the pandemic, especially those able to facilitate participation for historically marginalized groups, to enhance their effectiveness and inclusion and strengthen trust in them.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Democracy assistance organizations, think tanks and research institutions could consider including environmental dimensions in assessments of the performance of democratic systems.
Region: Global
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Deliver
  • Governments, together with civil society and educational institutions, should combat acceptance of corruption by embracing a long-term view of the fight against corruption. This includes a commitment to developing curricula, beginning in primary school, that focuses on the principles of personal integrity.
Region: Global
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Deliver
  • Governments should increase integrity by going beyond a mere focus on compliance to an overhaul of institutions and legal frameworks that incentivize (financially and otherwise) acting within the law.
Region: Global
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Deliver
  • Academia has a key role to play in evaluating innovative practices in this field, in terms of both process and outcomes, and should continuously feed practitioners with lessons on how democratic practices and tools can make democracy more inclusive.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Political parties, in collaboration with national parliaments, should advocate for review, reform and/or implementation of legislative provisions of electoral laws (where applicable) to ensure that structures, including political party campaign funds, are easily accessible to women political leaders. Reforms that promote more effective participation of women in political competition will greatly boost improved leadership governance at different levels.

Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Political parties must work to be proactively inclusive. Internal party governance that is inclusive of factors such as age, gender and ethnicity should bring in support from more sectors of society and build trust, and then translate this into political parties obtaining more seats. This effort should not be limited to reforming internal regulatory frameworks; it should address the barriers that hamper change. Political parties becoming more credible and inclusive will also improve their image in the eyes of citizens, thereby boosting their popular appeal.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • EMBs should enhance regional cooperation and networking. This is in order to exchange views on international principles and standards, in such areas as independence, electoral justice, civic education, and gender equality and elections, and to identify the key challenges facing EMBs and other authorities in charge of organizing elections with integrity in the region, through peer-to-peer pressure and comparative experience-sharing, including from other regions.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Rebuild

 

  • Action must be taken that will improve public trust in the integrity of electoral processes and greater participation in elections. Among other things, EMBs should adopt more transparent and effective rules on campaign finance, and should also develop more effective enforcement mechanisms of those rules, as well as robust civic and voter education (Middle East and North Africa). 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Prevent
  • Opposition groups should also prioritize the development of modern leadership structures. This should include a focus on the development of decision-making processes and greater inclusion of youth and women at the leadership level. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments should prioritize the immediate improvement of basic services. Better public health and education services and social protection systems are essential for improving the livelihoods and reducing the vulnerability of the region’s millions of marginalized poor and disadvantaged communities, who have suffered the most during the pandemic and as a result of conflict and violence. To avoid any stress-induced social unrest, governments must proactively invest in livelihood-strengthening systems, predictable social safety networks, economic stimulus for small and medium-sized enterprises, and tax benefits, among other things, to cushion vulnerable groups and stimulate economic recovery. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Prevent
  • Civil society should campaign against restrictions on civil rights by raising public awareness of the limitations that are in place and of their practical impact (e.g. through the establishment of observatories). This type of action can help focus efforts in government and civil society on a specific set of priorities and register important gains in the process. Providing the general population with an avenue to channel their demands and frustrations will go some way towards staving off uncontrollable expressions of public anger.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Governments, with the support of regional organizations and the international community, need to invest in strengthening democratic governance in the region. A particular focus should be in expanding the space for improved participation of women and youth in political processes, through the enactment of the requisite political and legislative reforms, and the sound implementation of existing constitutional provisions.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Importantly, parliaments should have robust engagement with regional governments and political parties. Together with the support of the regional organizations (Gulf Cooperation Council and League of Arab States) and the international community, they should come up with clear constitutional safeguards and good governance practices to discourage and take action against member states that manipulate constitutions and use military coups to extend their rule.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver
  • Political party structures should, in unison with the public and other non-state actors, continue to non-violently push for greater public sensitization and stimulate public debate on political reform. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver
  • Civil society groups should also act as trusted public agents to provide checks on the excesses of executives and monarchies, and demand better performance from EMBs. They should be calling for EMBs to conduct quality elections, and to enforce electoral laws (where applicable), as well as pushing for greater women’s political participation in the electoral process. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver

 

  • State institutions, including governments, parliaments and independent bodies, should strive to improve the processes for policy formulation, implementation and evaluation in the democracy, elections and governance sectors. Modern mechanisms and innovations should be deployed for that purpose, including, but not limited to, tools for engaging in post-legislative scrutiny through the systematic generation and analysis of reliable data. Analysing how legislation and policies have been implemented, as well as their associated impacts, increases the chance that future policies and legislative actions will fulfil their original objectives.

Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Deliver

 

  • Civil society should invest in civic education. Social movements and future political leaders benefit enormously from training on strategic planning so that their demands can be presented in a way that has an actual impact on the political process, including but not limited to the policy formation processes. A full understanding of citizens’ rights and obligations, and the benefits to be gained from being involved, is the main pillar for healthy, transparent and accountable democracy.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Deliver

 

  • Executive and legislative bodies must become more inclusive, both in membership and in decision-making. Decision-making bodies throughout the region, including and especially high-level bodies, are not broadly representative, which has contributed to failures in the formulation and implementation of appropriate policies . These bodies must prioritize the inclusion of women, youth and other under-represented groups in their membership and processes, with a view to addressing the complex social challenges that are rooted in misgovernance and poor political participation and have been exacerbated by the pandemic, such as growing poverty and inequality, increased unemployment and slow progress on gender issues.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Deliver

 

  • International and regional organizations should also continue to support country efforts to transition to a more democratic and stable system of government—for example, in Libya and Sudan, depending on the state of the transition there. Organizations should engage in sustained assistance—over a period of several years—that is grounded in genuine local needs and transparent governance. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver

 

  • The UN, the international community and the regional organizations should continue to support inclusive peacebuilding, conflict prevention and post-conflict recovery in countries such as Libya, Palestine, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. There should be continued investment in confidence-building across different sectors, at the state, community and non-state levels, to support recovery and stabilization efforts and spur an economic revival, which is important for stability and prosperity.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver

 

  • International and regional organizations should support efforts across the region to improve basic welfare for the poorest and most vulnerable segments of society, including by investing in modern mechanisms that improve delivery of services—particularly in countries that have been affected by conflict.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver

 

  • CSOs and the media should continue to demand greater regime accountability, improved governance and effective citizen political participation in state affairs.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver

 

  • Civil society organizations should also push for greater political reform and advocate against unconstitutional changes of government, and for the enforcement of quota-based gender representation and the expansion of democratic spaces to accommodate marginalized voices
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver

 

  • The judiciary as an independent institution (at least in some cases) should bravely and judiciously guard against executives’ and monarchies’ excesses and abuses of power. The judiciary must swiftly and judiciously dispense with electoral disputes.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver

 

  • Courts throughout the region should prioritize the oversight of the implementation of constitutional guarantees, including but not limited to socio-economic rights.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver

 

  • Governments should allow for greater media freedom and protection of journalists, especially in active conflict and post-conflict situations in the region 
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Establecer foros permanentes de concertación entre partidos políticos para discutir propuestas de políticas públicas y de reforma institucional (que contemplen también la regulación de los procesos electorales). Dichos foros deben procurar el logro de los siguientes objetivos: (a) complementar los espacios formales de toma de decisiones para articular e impulsar propuestas de interés común entre diversas fuerzas políticas; (b) establecer vías comunes de diálogo con otros órganos del Estado, y (c) reducir la polarización. Se recomienda estudiar el caso del Foro Permanente de Partidos Políticos de la República Dominicana y promover las acciones necesarias para replicar dicho foro lo más pronto posible en otros países de la región.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Regular el aplazamiento de elecciones en tiempos de emergencia. Actualizar o emitir legislación que detalle las razones por las cuales dicho aplazamiento puede decretarse, los criterios técnicos que deben considerarse y los procedimientos que deben seguirse. Los procedimientos deben ser flexibles, inclusivos y transparentes, y la decisión de aplazar un proceso electoral debe ir siempre acompañada de la definición de una nueva fecha para los comicios y de la existencia de garantías que protejan el ejercicio de los derechos políticos. En caso de ser posible, se recomienda realizar esta actualización antes del próximo proceso electoral programado.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Rebuild
  • Establecer o reactivar consejos económicos y sociales a nivel nacional y subnacional como mecanismos para promover el diálogo y la negociación entre diversos sectores de la sociedad. Se recomienda que dichos consejos sean institucionalizados por ley o enmienda constitucional, con el fin de que su conformación y su funcionamiento sean periódicos e ininterrumpidos. También se recomienda identificar los países donde estos consejos funcionan exitosamente y promover iniciativas de cooperación. En los casos en que este tipo de consejos no estén contemplados en leyes o disposiciones constitucionales, se recomienda establecer su conformación vía decreto lo antes posible.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Rebuild
  • Controlar los presupuestos y los fondos públicos en situaciones de emergencia. Revisar o emitir legislación sobre la activación de mecanismos especiales de supervisión de presupuestos y de fondos de emergencia, a ser implementados por los parlamentos en coordinación con las entidades nacionales de control. Se recomienda hacer dicha revisión apenas concluyan los actuales estados de emergencia.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Regular el funcionamiento de los parlamentos en tiempos de emergencia. Actualizar o emitir regulaciones sobre las modalidades contempladas para que los parlamentos y sus comisiones sigan celebrando sesiones en situaciones de emergencia. Las regulaciones deben procurar que en las sesiones se respeten los principios de transparencia, pluralidad y deliberación democrática, y que se mantengan abiertos los canales de información y de comunicación con la ciudadanía y los medios.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Regular la declaración de estados de emergencia y la suspensión de garantías. Revisar o enmendar los marcos constitucionales y legales que permiten declarar estados de emergencia y suspender garantías, y definir de manera clara los conceptos, los roles de los órganos públicos, y la extensión y el alcance de los poderes de emergencia desde un enfoque democrático y de derechos humanos. Se recomienda iniciar dicha revisión o enmienda en cuanto expiren los estados de emergencia actualmente vigentes, así como revisar o emitir regulaciones que contengan parámetros claros sobre la medida en que puede limitarse el acceso a la información pública en situaciones de emergencia.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • Complementar o reforzar los mecanismos nacionales de protección de la democracia y de los derechos humanos mediante las instancias regionales e internacionales vigentes. Alinear los marcos jurídico-institucionales nacionales con las prácticas y las obligaciones internacionales voluntariamente asumidas por los Estados de la región. Evaluar la conveniencia (ventajas y riesgos) de revisar la Carta Democrática Interamericana para adecuarla a las amenazas que actualmente enfrenta la democracia en América Latina y el Caribe, y crear una relatoría especial sobre el estado de la democracia en la región que presente informes periódicos sobre el estado de situación y el grado de cumplimiento de la Carta por parte de los diferentes actores de los Estados miembros, en colaboración con la sociedad civil y otras relatorías del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • Negociar códigos de conducta para los procesos electorales. Establecer códigos consensuados entre partidos, medios de comunicación y plataformas de redes sociales para reducir la polarización, desalentar los ataques y evitar la divulgación de noticias falsas o de información desleal. Se recomienda acordar y definir dichos códigos para cada proceso electoral bajo la guía y la vigilancia de las autoridades electorales, y con la participación de la sociedad civil y la academia. Argentina, México y Panamá, entre otros países, han implementado distintos modelos de ese tipo de códigos. A este respecto, el código de conducta negociado en Holanda bajo el liderazgo de IDEA Internacional constituye una guía valiosa.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Prevent
  • Formalizar procedimientos de tamizaje y verificación de candidaturas. Actualizar o crear legislación, regulaciones o protocolos que exijan que los partidos políticos sean diligentes a la hora de revisar los antecedentes éticos de los candidatos y las candidatas a puestos de elección popular. Establecer también la obligación legal de los partidos de exigir a sus aspirantes la presentación de antecedentes, definir sanciones en caso de que se suministre información falsa, y establecer la obligación de los partidos políticos de garantizar que la información sobre sus candidatos y candidatas sea de acceso público
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Prevent
  • Digitalizar los sistemas de compra, de contrataciones públicas y de prestación de servicios públicos. Prevenir sobornos y sobreprecios mediante sistemas digitales que garanticen la transparencia de las transacciones y permitan controlar las diferentes etapas de los procesos de compra y contratación de bienes y servicios públicos. 
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Prevent
  • Controlar el financiamiento político. Se recomienda realizar un mayor control del financiamiento privado por medio de diversas acciones, a saber: (a) distribuir subsidios escalonados a lo largo del ciclo electoral que se dirijan parcialmente a la investigación y la capacitación de los miembros de los partidos; (b) establecer mecanismos de rendición de cuentas del manejo financiero de partidos y candidatos, y (c) aplicar un sistema gradual de sanciones para las personas responsables de la dirección financiera de los partidos políticos que incumplan de alguna manera la legislación vigente.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Prevent
  • Revisar o emitir legislación que regule con claridad el rol de las fuerzas armadas, evitando asignarles tareas de mantenimiento del orden público. Establecer límites claros de la función de las fuerzas armadas y garantizar su obediencia a los mandos civiles, con estricto apego al Estado de derecho y al respeto de los derechos humanos.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Prevent
  • Mantener a las fuerzas de defensa y de seguridad pública bajo mando civil. Revisar o modificar lo más pronto posible las regulaciones que garantizan que los cuerpos especializados de seguridad pública estén subordinados al poder civil y no al militar.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Incluir a los órganos y las autoridades electorales en las relatorías especiales (regionales e internacionales) que ya existen para la protección de la independencia judicial, o bien crear mecanismos ad hoc. Estas medidas podrían ser complementadas mediante protocolos que contengan mecanismos efectivos de monitoreo para identificar y cuantificar la gravedad y el alcance de aquellas acciones de los poderes políticos que pongan en entredicho la imparcialidad de los órganos electorales, o supongan amenazas en contra de la institucionalidad o la integridad de sus funcionarios y funcionarias.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver
  • Garantizar y regular el financiamiento de la participación política de las mujeres. Promulgar legislación que asegure el acceso de las mujeres a financiamiento político, público y privado, para garantizar que dicho financiamiento no represente un obstáculo para la plena participación de las mujeres en la política
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver
  • Incrementar la participación política de las mujeres, las personas jóvenes, las minorías étnicas, la población LGBTI y las personas con discapacidad. Emitir legislación que garantice la paridad de género y la inclusión y representación de la diversidad social en todos los poderes del Estado y en todos los niveles de gobierno. Garantizar también la paridad de género en los encabezamientos de las listas electorales e implementar mecanismos efectivos para asegurar el cumplimiento de dicha legislación.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver
  • Implementar métodos especiales de votación para garantizar la seguridad pública. Se recomienda que los órganos electorales de la región evalúen los beneficios y los riesgos de implementar mecanismos especiales de votación tales como el voto postal, el voto anticipado, la urna móvil, el voto por poder y el voto electrónico.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Deliver
  • Desarrollar programas de liderazgo democrático. Potenciar la capacidad y el trabajo de las escuelas y los centros de administración y las políticas públicas existentes en la región mediante programas de formación en liderazgo y gobernabilidad democrática. Además de promover el apego a la democracia y a sus principios, estos programas deben procurar reducir la polarización política, contribuir a mejorar la calidad del debate público, crear espacios formales e informales de interacción entre partidos políticos y organizaciones de la sociedad civil, y articular propuestas conjuntas de reforma socioeconómica e institucional. Las autoridades electorales, las universidades y los partidos políticos deben desempeñar un papel central en el liderazgo de dichas acciones.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Deliver
  • Implementar programas públicos gratuitos de cuidado de personas. Implementar programas de este tipo para promover la inserción laboral y la autonomía económica de las mujeres y su participación en espacios económicos, políticos y de activismo ciudadano. Si bien el desarrollo de estos programas es multisectorial, se recomienda que las autoridades electorales los incluyan entre sus prioridades para contribuir a aumentar la participación política de las mujeres. A corto plazo se recomienda su inclusión en los programas dirigidos a impulsar el empoderamiento político de las mujeres.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver
  • Combatir la violencia política contra las mujeres. Emitir legislación que reconozca el término “violencia política” y que cuente con sistemas efectivos de monitoreo y de sanción.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver
  • Implementar mecanismos de observación y enmienda para proteger las libertades de expresión y de prensa. Establecer o fortalecer sistemas de monitoreo, protección y enmienda que permitan identificar y cuantificar la extensión y el alcance de posibles vulneraciones de dichas libertades. Se recomienda contar con la colaboración de asociaciones profesionales y organizaciones académicas.
Region: Las Américas
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver
  • Establecer mecanismos de observación y enmienda que fortalezcan la independencia del Poder Judicial, y garanticen la transparencia del nombramiento de sus autoridades y la estabilidad de su funcionariado. Estas acciones deben ser complementadas y coordinadas con la labor de los mecanismos o las relatorías (regionales e internacionales) existentes en materia de independencia judicial.
Region: Global
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments must work with social media platforms, human rights experts, tech experts and CSOs to develop regulatory practices that balance free speech principles with the need to combat harmful content, hate speech and disinformation.
Region: Global
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments should support the newly created International Fund for Public Interest Media, which focuses on strengthening public interest media in low- and middle-income countries.
Region: Global
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments must prioritize the protection of journalists and other representatives of the media. There must be legal accountability for threats to, intimidation of, harassment of, attacks on and killings of journalists.
Region: Global
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments must support independent and public interest journalism, partly by making sure that deals with digital platforms requiring them to pay news outlets for their content do not inadvertently harm smaller publishers. They should also design incentives for philanthropic donations to the news sector and consider the use of tax concessions to encourage public interest journalism
Region: Global
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Rebuild
  • Regulators and news publishers should work together to come up with proposals for ways in which news publishers can gain more control over how and when their content is presented on social media platforms.
Region: Global
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments should support civil society’s right to receive funding by following the guidance provided in the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Resolution on Covid-19: The Road to Recovery and the Essential Role of Civil Society. This Resolution reaffirms the critical role that civil society plays in society and urges governments to protect and promote the work of CSOs. Governments should ensure that pandemic recovery packages include easily accessible resources for civil society, especially those who operate in local communities.
Region: Global
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Rebuild
  • Government agencies and the private sector must recognize, protect and facilitate CSOs' role as watchdogs and more systematically include these groups in policy dialogue and strategic plans.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments must conduct risk assessments on money laundering and terrorism financing so that they can clearly identify, assess and understand the risks they face. These assessments should include civil society, and the results should feed into a risk-based approach that minimizes unfair restrictions on CSOs that are not at risk of being abused by money launderers or terrorist organizations.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Civil society organizations (CSOs) must strengthen their capacity to operate and protect civic space in the digital realm, and democracy assistance organizations have a key role to play in supporting such capacity strengthening.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Regional and global organizations and donors should urgently prioritize sophisticated early warning tools that flag contexts in which serious democratic decay is likely. Such tools should include indicators that measure the full range of democratic attributes and should help alert policymakers, activists and the media to the need for interventions in the short and long term.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Democracy assistance organizations should revise and reorient their programming to more effectively address new and emerging challenges to democracy, as well as to ensure that it is more evidence-based and long-term in nature. Sharing lessons learned between democracy assistance organizations could help improve efficiency and impact.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments must restore public trust in the information order by ensuring that their laws are aligned with and in compliance with article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, promoting inclusive digital engagement, protecting data privacy, and regulating social media by enforcing transparency, due process rights for users and due diligence on human rights by companies.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • The international community should pay attention to the potential for pandemic emergency law responses to be abused, both now and in the longer term, including through the normalization of emergency powers and the expansion of unchecked executive authority. Parliaments and judiciaries should consolidate and share lessons learned, both domestically and internationally, and develop policies that mitigate the risk of executive overreach for future emergencies.
Region: Global
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Prevent
  • .State-level actors should consider amending constitutions to ensure that emergency declarations are automatically subject to judicial review.
Region: Global
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Prevent
  • State-level actors should buttress the independence of the judiciary and the independence of judges to both protect against executive overreach and ensure that the government upholds its positive obligations under constitutional and international law to protect the life and health of the people. Judicial bodies and other stakeholders should review the rules of standing (i.e. the capacity of a party to bring a suit in court) to ensure that they are sufficiently broad to enable individuals, civil society organizations, and independent oversight and integrity institutions to bring claims to address problems of both executive overreach and inaction.
Region: Global
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Prevent
  • Governments must ensure that all state institutions intended to check executive power are given enough political, legal and human resources to perform their duties, and that laws and regulations facilitate congressional and judicial oversight.
Region: Global
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Rebuild
  • Policing agencies and government agencies responsible for internal security, with the advice of civil society, must design supportive infrastructures for peaceful public assembly and protest, including by re-imagining how to safely police protests, in terms of both protesters and law enforcement. Legislatures must demonstrate how protesters’ concerns are being integrated into policy reform discussions. Civil society and media must play their parts as watchdogs, holding officials to account when necessary.
Region: Global
Type: Prevent
  • Political parties, media and network platforms should sign codes of conduct that commit signatories to reducing polarization and preventing the use of disinformation to challenge electoral results. Codes should be developed for each electoral process, and they should be the result of consultations with EMBs and with the involvement of civil society, media and other electoral stakeholders. Countries such as Ghana, Mexico and the Netherlands, among others, have signed such codes. The Code of Conduct signed by political parties and social media platforms in the Netherlands, with the guidance and leadership of International IDEA, offers a useful example.
Region: Global
Type: Prevent
  • Civil society and other election monitoring/ observation groups should draw and share lessons about communicating, advocating and holding authorities accountable in fast-moving and uncertain scenarios. Particular emphasis on the importance of EMBs’ role in establishing themselves as the most reliable source of information is important.
Region: Global
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Prevent
  • EMBs and other similar institutions should consider institutionalizing risk management and crisis preparedness, including in relation to dangerous counter-narratives about electoral integrity. This includes building mutually trusting relationships between election-relevant institutions and reviewing lessons learned from the pandemic.
Region: Global
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Prevent
  • EMBs, legislatures and other bodies that make election-related decisions must ensure that they engage in consultative and transparent processes, especially when electoral calendars are changed. Changes to the conduct and/or cadence of elections must be accompanied by roadmaps that mitigate any possibly undemocratic implications.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Political parties, legislatures and civil society should reconsider the role, purpose and composition of the party system in the 21st century. In particular, political parties should consider the demands that citizens have been making throughout the recent wave of protest movements and assess how they can integrate those concerns into their plans and proposals going forward.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Governments should redesign political institutions and processes in ways that incentivize democratic actors and reward processes that are more inclusive, citizen-centred, accountable and responsive in terms of their decision-making and service delivery. Research institutions have a key role to play in evaluating lessons learned from democratic innovations in this field.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Bilateral and multilateral donors, democracy assistance organizations and academia should commit to evidence-based decision-making and the development of a research agenda that can provide continuous, reliable data related to the interaction between democracy and climate change.
Region: Global
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Governments, with the support of civil society, should adopt participatory processes that involve youth and citizens in the design and implementation of laws and targets on climate change and in the design of mechanisms that fairly address those affected by industrial shifts caused by sustainability policies.
Region: Global
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver
  • Governments have a responsibility to close regulatory loopholes in the funding of political parties and election campaigns (political finance). Examples include greater transparency and—when applicable— limitations on donations; spending limits on third-party campaigners; public funding for political parties; updated laws that address emerging corruption risks in the use of online fundraising tools, social media advertisements and cryptocurrencies; empowered oversight agencies to ensure the implementation of existing laws; connecting political finance regulations with other anti-corruption and transparency measures, such as lobbying registers, open public procurement data and asset disclosure of elected officials; and the expansion of comparative data and developing indicators in relation to political finance.
Region: Global
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Deliver
  • Civil society and the media have a key role to play in exposing impunity by staying ahead of the ever evolving openings for corrupt practices, with a focus on identifying weak enforcement of anti-corruption laws.
Region: Global
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Deliver
  • Governments, with support from civil society and the media, should provide the public with open and transparent data on budgets, expenditures and policies and their outcomes so that people understand how corruption has an impact on their everyday lives and can hold governments to account.
Region: Global
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Deliver
  • Governments must show a renewed and serious commitment to the fight against corruption, recognizing the ways in which it disproportionately impacts certain groups, especially those who are exposed to discrimination.286 International financial and development institutions should condition support on proven progress in fighting corruption. Civil society and the media should continue to play a critical watchdog role in the fight against corruption.
Region: Global
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Deliver
  • Governments should consider defining fiscal contracts with citizens by convening, for example, national dialogues over a fiscal pact committed to improving equity in tax enforcement and taxpayer services, broadening direct taxation, and strengthening civil society engagement with tax issues.
Region: Global
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Deliver
  • Political parties and legislatures should design creative ways to include youth in political decision-making processes. Good examples include lowering the voting age, establishing a youth ombudsman and/or including youth representatives in democratic decision-making bodies.
Region: Global
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Deliver
  • Political parties should prioritize gender equality and broad inclusion, facilitating women’s and other disadvantaged groups’ participation and representation to ensure more responsive policies. Civil society and media have a key role to play in monitoring progress, suggesting reforms and facilitating debate around progress on equality.
Region: Global
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver
  • Donors should also consider making action on inequality a condition of funding, going beyond superficial markers of diversity into more substantive evidence that inequalities are addressed in systematic ways.
Region: Global
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver
  • National and local governments and political parties should redesign democratic institutions with the needs of historically disadvantaged and marginalized groups at the forefront. Governments, with support from civil society, must urgently set concrete, time-bound targets to reduce inequalities, invest in universal public services, and adopt progressive taxation of the wealthiest members of society.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments should submit themselves to independent post-pandemic "state of emergency" audits, including through facilitation by multilateral bodies such as United Nations, Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). These audits should weigh emergency measures against human rights and rule of law standards to ensure that improved national legal frameworks in relation to emergency regimes can be put in place before future crises.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • Online political campaigning should be regulated urgently to combat disinformation, foreign online interference, abuse of private data, and opaque funding of political campaigns. European governments should invest in independent oversight of online electoral campaigns, support EU-level initiatives to regulate online platforms, and earmark funding for cybersecurity in elections.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • Europe, the USA and other democracies should renew focus on democratic multilateralism to counter recent anti-authoritarian upsurges in Europe. Together they should harmonize their economic and security policies with the objective of protecting fundamental rights, rule of law and democratic transformations in places such as Azerbaijan, Belarus and Russia, and redouble support to countries under threat of authoritarian interference. They should jointly protect activists and journalists that are in the frontlines of the struggle for democracy in Europe and elsewhere.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • The EU and its member states should develop a rapid response mechanism to push back against early signs of democratic backsliding, including by imposing conditionalities on accessing EU funds. The EU should support activists , by helping to exchange lessons on successful resistance by judges, journalists, and democracy activists across the region. The bloc should enhance democracy support within its borders including through significant financial assistance to support this effort.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Prevent
  • Freedom of information laws must be made to work swiftly and efficiently. This is to facilitate the gathering and dissemination of accurate information and to counter disinformation. Any permissible limitations on freedom of information should not put in jeopardy the right of access of information itself. Only with complete openness about emergency decisions can governments fulfil the accountability standards necessary in a democratic society.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Prevent
  • Emergency-related actions that limit fundamental rights should always be accompanied by broad public information campaigns. Informing citizens of the rationale behind such measures, and the implication they have on their rights, can increase citizen acceptance and foster democratic activism and oversight of government action. In all cases, emergency measures that limit people’s fundamental rigths and freedoms must always be lawful, necessary, and proportionate.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • Parliaments, the bedrock of representative democracy, should act so that they never again find themselves sidelined by an emergency. They should set up special bodies for crisis monitoring and oversight and should invest in technology that guarantees their unhindered functioning during future crises.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver
  • Temporary voting methods that worked during the pandemic should be made permanent but with sufficient safeguards against fraud. Postal and early voting demonstrated their potential to increase turnout when introduced with care and impartiality.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver
  • The independence of electoral management bodies must be maintained, including during emergencies. Political parties should commit to this and refrain from politicizing the holding or postponing of elections.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Deliver
  • Governments should actively encourage civic engagement, including through increased funding. If the pandemic has taught governments anything, it is that no emergency measure is effective without the backing of citizens. Meaningful, systematic opportunities for civil society participation in public policy planning and decision-making must be cemented into governance.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver
  • To repair the social contract, governments should take urgent action in their economic recovery plans to address social inequalities. The pandemic laid bare the structural inequalities in European societies, as women and the poor have borne the brunt of its impact.
Region: Europe
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver
  • Governments should combat disinformation, but criminal sanctions against alleged perpetrators must not be abused. In a telltale sign of malign intent, criminal sanctions have been widely abused to harass journalists and censor media during the pandemic. Instead, governments should focus on detecting and debunking disinformation.
Region: Asia and The Pacific
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Rebuild
  • The international community and regional actors need to provide support to the civic movements for democracy, which have emerged around the region, often as a direct response to regressive action by government forces. Local civic activism is the way to bring about change in closed societies. Likewise, long-term civic education on democratic principles and rights is a valuable investment in the future of democracy.
Region: Asia and The Pacific
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Rebuild
  • National legislative frameworks regulating migrant worker rights require significant updates and/
    or reform. With the rise of ethnonationalism, laws combating hate speech and xenophobia online also require strengthening and updating, in consultation with affected groups.

Region: Asia and The Pacific
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • Governments must consider the needs of women. Women have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, and it is vital to ensure that their needs are taken into account in all future public health emergency responses. Specifically, they should integrate caregiving into the formal healthcare system. The pandemic underlined that (mostly female) formal and informal caregivers are ‘frontline’ workers essential to maintaining public health and safety.
Region: Asia and The Pacific
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Prevent
  • Future emergencies need to be managed at the appropriate government level. Dealing with the pandemic offered a practical demonstration of the benefits that decentralized and multilevel government, accompanied with delegated decision- making, can offer.
Region: Asia and The Pacific
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Legislatures would benefit from evaluations of what helped them to function and what did not work during the pandemic. It would be crucial to highlight new practices that are likely to improve public engagement with parliaments. National best practices can be shared with other legislatures in the Asia and the Pacific region.
Region: Asia and The Pacific
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • Electoral management bodies (EMBs) require a clear mandate to navigate emergencies and deliver elections with undeterred agility and flexibility. This aspect includes identifying and promoting ways to enhance voter turnout in exceptional conditions, such as absentee voting and extending voting hours, and providing EMBs with the ability to make independent and swift decisions in response to emergencies. Solid but flexible electoral frameworks are required to manage elections in future emergencies.
Region: Asia and The Pacific
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Deliver
  • Provisions for declaring a state of emergency should be clearly and unambiguously articulated in relevant legislation, if not in the constitution. This process includes setting a timeline for adopting such exceptional measures and creating an oversight
    role for the legislature and judiciary throughout the emergency.

Region: Asia and The Pacific
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver
  • Security sector reform and democratization should be integrated. Reforms are needed to ensure civilian control of the military and the security sector’s compliance with human rights principles and practices, and a clear separation of reciprocal responsibilities. This aspect requires oversight and accountability, via parliamentary and independent bodies, broadly representative of the population. This configuration will also serve to foster the engagement of civil society representatives. 
Region: Asia and The Pacific
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver
  • National audits should be conducted. Governments need to conduct national audits of their performance and of related constitutional and legal frameworks in addressing a pandemic or similar crises. These audits should be carried out by national bodies consisting of cross-party members of parliament and representatives of the health, legal, education, academic and police sectors, and they should also involve public consultations. The resulting audits should be made public to enhance government accountability. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • The African Union and regional bodies and mechanisms should work with non-governmental partners to strengthen conflict prevention, mediation, peacebuilding and diplomatic efforts (such as the use of Good Offices of Special Envoys and Eminent Persons) in elections considered to be at risk of violence. Such initiatives should provide a role for respected leaders to engage with their peers to de-escalate political tensions, especially in transition and post-conflict countries.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Governments and parliaments should initiate efforts to strengthen the fiscal, administrative and legal independence of EMBs and provide funding for emergencies that may arise. Such efforts should include putting in place open, independent recruitment procedures and making provisions for direct funding beyond the election year.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Rebuild
  • Legal procedures must be defined to delineate when and how an election may be postponed. Electoral management bodies (EMBs) and civil society groups should lead initiatives that include constitutional provisions mandating either parliament or EMBs to decide on election postponements, subject to judicial approval. Legislation should require consultation beforehand and time limits for any postponement.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Rebuild
  • Parliaments in countries that do not have specific legal provisions on affirmative action to promote women’s participation in political life should prioritize the introduction of such provisions in legal reform processes, including building them into constitutions. Such provisions include setting up mandatory quotas where opportunities for reform exist. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Rebuild
  • EMBs should work with civil society groups, registrars of political parties, and parliaments to strengthen gender equality strategies to promote women’s participation in politics. Such strategies include establishing voluntary quotas within political parties and establishing legal provisions to prohibit violence targeted at female politicians, with specific enforcement mechanisms to deter violations. Civil society should also develop specific advocacy initiatives to address the low representation of women at all levels of government. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Rebuild
  • Women’s rights groups should build on the experience and lessons from the pandemic to push for gender-sensitive emergency response policies and procedures. Disaster management strategies that are gender-sensitive will lead to the types of healthcare investments that will improve maternal health in the long run.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • EMBs should leverage the opportunities created by the pandemic to open discussions on special voting arrangements and technological innovations in the conduct of elections to expand voting rights. Such discussions should be inclusive and transparent to give voice to the views of a broad spectrum of electoral stakeholders and should address concerns expressed, before reaching a decision to adopt the use of technology in elections. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Representative Government
Type: Prevent
  • EMBs should conduct reviews to draw lessons from the pandemic, together with civil society groups, disaster management agencies and security agencies. EMBs should develop emergency response strategies and, where necessary, initiate legal reforms to provide legal backing for such strategies, defining the minimum requirements for conducting democratic elections in an emergency. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Participatory Engagement
Type: Prevent
  • Members of parliament, political party leaders, attorneys general, civil society groups and other stakeholders should develop inclusive and transparent constitution review strategies. Such strategies should define who has a mandate for decision-making, set a priority list for issues to be addressed in the constitution review, and set clear timelines to avoid clashes with other institutional reforms.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Impartial Administration
Type: Prevent
  • Governments should undertake legal reforms to strengthen the autonomy of anti-corruption agencies and audit courts. Such initiatives should include investing in capacity-building initiatives through training and operational support to strengthen the agencies’ ability to effectively prosecute corrupt state officials.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Prevent
  • The Pan-African Parliament and other regional parliaments or legislative bodies should establish initiatives to advocate for the establishment of strong national legal frameworks on freedom of information and laws that protect the media as an important institution of democracy. In this regard, these supranational legislative bodies should reach out to countries that are yet to pass freedom of information laws. Furthermore, for countries that have existing freedom of information laws, the parliaments should audit such laws against the Model Freedom of Information Law that was developed by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • The African Union should work with national professional platforms of journalists to promote the use of its newly established online portal for tracking attacks against journalists. In this regard, the African Union, in collaboration with the regional economic communities and other relevant mechanisms, should undertake an awareness drive in its member states and train journalists in such contexts on the use of virtual private networks, especially in contexts where Internet shutdowns may limit access to the portal.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Prevent
  • The African Union and Regional Economic Communities should provide support for local initiatives that seek to reverse the erosion of presidential term limits. Such support could include the adoption of specific protocols to commit presidents to uphold the limits. This was attempted by the Economic Community of West African States in 2015 without success, but it should be encouraged.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver
  • The leadership of the African Union should continue its push to bridge the gap in vaccine availability between African countries and the West. In this regard, more countries should join the likes of South Africa to promote research and vaccine production. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver
  • Governments should put urgent measures in place to bridge the widening digital gap on the continent as a means of addressing the increase in inequality that has been accelerated by the pandemic. Such measures should involve strong public–private partnerships to leverage the resources made available by big technology firms.
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Fundamental Rights
Type: Deliver
  • Governments must address the emerging trend of increased gender-based violence with as much urgency as the global health pandemic. They should allocate specific budgets to establish community response systems for prevention and develop online portals for real-time reporting of gender-based violence. Furthermore, governments should put in place national initiatives to give justice systems the capacity to protect victims of gender-based violence and to prosecute sex offenders.

Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver
  • The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC) should work with national centres for control of communicable diseases to develop messages to counter disinformation about the Covid-19 vaccines. The ACDC should also provide the required operational support for countries to effectively roll out a vaccination programme. 
Region: Africa and the Middle East
Attribute: Checks on Government
Type: Deliver
  • The African Union and regional economic communities should support national advocacy initiatives led by civil society groups to entrench access to the Internet as a non-negotiable facilitator of other democratic rights. Such initiatives should include advocacy for reforms to repeal laws that give governments the right to turn off the Internet or restrict access to social media platforms. The African Union should work with national governments through their different ministries of technology to act upon the commitments in its Declaration on Internet Governance.
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Global State of Democracy Report 2021

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