DRAFT
The European Partnership for Democracy: Initiator and developer of INSPIRED
The European Partnership for Democracy (EPD) is an independent European non-profit organisation supporting the development of democracy outside the European Union. As a network of European civil and political society organisations, EPD advocates for a stronger presence of democracy support on the EU’s agenda and facilitates the exchange of knowledge among practitioners. EPD is the first Community of Practice on democracy assistance operating at the EU level. As such, its added value lies in its capacity to bring together and to connect the work of organisations focusing on a wide range of themes and stakeholders. In this way, EPD seeks to contribute to the effectiveness and the quality of the programming and implementation cycles of democracy support at the EU level.
Beyond the crucial role of EPD Secretariat, two members of EPD’s Community of Practice have participated in the INSPIRED programme:
Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy
The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) assists political parties in new and emerging democracies. The organisation’s approach is characterised by facilitating dialogue. NIMD provides safe environments for political parties in a country to meet, overcome distrust and work together on political issues. In addition NIMD also works directly with parties to strengthen their capacities, and provides education programmes for potential politicians. NIMD works in more than 20 countries in Africa, Latin America, The Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe.
Club de Madrid
The Club de Madrid is the world´s largest, independent group of democratic, political leaders, committed to addressing the challenges of democratic transition and consolidation there where they can make a difference. The principal added value of the Club de Madrid is a unique membership of nearly 100, democratically elected, former Presidents and Prime Ministers, from over 60 countries, willing and able to share their diverse expertise, experience and networks in support of democratic values and leadership worldwide. As former Presidents and Prime Ministers, no longer in public office, Club de Madrid Members are not politically constrained and thus freer to share their experience and offer strategic advice.
Today, as INSPIRED is fully operational, the EPD's Community of Practices is mobilised more than ever to support various INSPIRED outputs
EPD’s participating members extensive experiences in all the layers of programming democracy helped to conceptualise a new way to conduct such activities, achieving what the donors and partners aim for. The uniqueness of EPD’s members' competencies covers all the areas that compose democracy, with specific sectoral knowledge, habit and ability to cooperate in achieving tangible progress. Combining their competencies, EPD members build effective Consortiums able to deal with the complexity of the political and social processes. When approaching democracy support together, EPD network unveils proposals potential in analysing in-depth how activities can produce the intended results.
That's why, regardless of the policy area INSPIRED projects may target, there will always be a relevant EPD member to assist with its expertise, for instance, but not limited to, working on governments' transparency, rights-based reforms, media dialogue, civil society capacity strengthening, etc.
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