Mar 8, 2011

NED Recognizes Women’s Role in Democracy Support Efforts

In 1989 Monica Jimenez, a NED grantee from Chile, was the first of eighteen women to receive NED's Democracy Award.  Pictured here with then U.S. President George H.W.Bush, and fellow honoree Jacek Kuron of Poland's Solidarity Movement.

Barbara Haig

On this International Women’s Day, the National Endowment for Democracy salutes the millions of courageous and talented women who are leaders in the global democracy movement.  Today, NED dedicates more than 10 percent of its annual program funding to about one hundred programs aimed at improving the status of women in the social, economic and political life of their countries. Women are present in all aspects of the Endowment’s work, including in the media, civic education and human rights; but since the early 1990s, we have seen the growth of programs supporting women in politics, women entrepreneurs, and women workers.

In 1984, when NED first began its grant making programs, democracy assistance was not yet accepted as a field of work.  In the early years of NED, it was still considered a bold move for organizations to apply for funding to a donor whose very mission suggested that democratization should be a primary goal, rather than a possible by-product of socio-economic development.   I still remember a US-based group that partnered with women’s groups in countries struggling to make a transition to democracy whose Board of Directors insisted that NED funding was “political” rather than “developmental,” and thus should be stopped.  The President of that organization resigned and started her own organization so she could continue working with women whose non-partisan efforts were building the capacity of other women to engage in the civic life of their countries.

From the beginning, the women we supported demonstrated great vision, innovation and leadership.  One of the first women’s programs funded by NED in 1984 was Conciencia Argentina, which began its work during the early years of the post-junta transition.  Under the leadership of its founder, Maria Rosa de Martini, this fledgling group began its civic education work under the radar by visiting women in their homes, and became a model of how women could become a tremendous force for democratization. 

Conciencia reached out to women in nearby countries, such as Uruguay, Nicaragua and Chile, who wanted to play a role in pushing their countries further and further away from their authoritarian legacies, and in 1985 pioneered what became NED’s cross-border approach to democracy assistance through grants and networking.  One of Conciencia’s cross-border partners, Participa, became a leader on the civic side of Chile’s transition. Participa’s founder, Monica Jimenez, became one of the first recipients of NED’s annual Democracy Award. 

Since the award began in 1989, eighteen women have been recognized as leading figures in democracy struggles in receiving this award. Recipients include formidable activists like Zainab Bangura, a civil society activists who stood up to the warlords in Sierra Leone, survived, and is now serving her country as Minister of Foreign Affairs;  Ludmilla Alexeyeva who at the age of 83 is still leading protests in Moscow defending basic civil rights in Russia; and Sakeena Yacoobi, who through her Afghan Institute of Learning has provided the opportunity for education to hundreds of thousands of Afghan women and children. 

These honorees are just a few of the many women supported by NED through our grants program over the years.  Countless other women have been assisted through the efforts of NED’s core grantees, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the Solidarity Center.

Democracy assistance is no longer a novel idea – and thanks to the work of women like Monica, Zainab, Ludmilla and Sakeena, the world has come to understand that democracy is the choice of women everywhere. NED looks forward to another year of supporting women leaders in the struggle for democracy.

Barbara Haig is the Deputy to the President for Policy and Strategy at the National Endowment for Democracy.