America’s authoritarian adversaries tighten their grip by controlling speech and information—both in their home countries and abroad. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) helps people break through that control and build the infrastructure that ensures pluralistic sources of information are available.
NED exists to support freedom where it’s under threat around the world. By mandate, we fund work focused on impact outside of the United States and do not support any projects involving U.S. domestic media, politics, or speech.
Free expression and open access to information are not abstractions; they are the precondition for free and self-governing societies. Freedom depends on the fundamental rights of citizens to speak, worship, question, organize, evaluate facts, and participate in civic life without fear.
When free speech is protected, citizens can ask hard questions and get real answers—exposing corruption and propaganda. NED partners help ensure people around the world have access to facts, a voice in their communities, and a say in their future.
Our Four Strategic Objectives in Authoritarian Informational Environments
1. Protect the Right to Speak – and Expose Abuse
Propaganda thrives when the public is silenced. NED equips citizens, researchers, and journalists to document abuses—arbitrary arrests, speech-based prosecutions, torture and ill-treatment, newsroom raids, and digital surveillance—and to chronicle citizen efforts, from peaceful protest to community initiatives, that press for change. We help partners professionalize editorial standards, reporting processes, digital and physical security systems, and legal defenses, so truth-telling can endure.
- Iran: During the Women, Life, Freedom protests, NED partners documented deaths, injuries, and arrests—supplying verified evidence to Iranian audiences, international media, and human-rights investigations.
- Uyghurs and Tibetans: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is carrying out a campaign of forced assimilation and cultural genocide against Tibetans and Uyghurs. Partners pierce Beijing’s censorship by opening secure channels for testimony from inside Tibet and Xinjiang, verifying and archiving evidence, translating findings, and safeguarding sources. Their efforts keep the right to speak and access independent information alive while building pressure for accountability.
- Russia: NED-supported journalists and engaged citizens defend the freedoms to speak, publish, and access information. By uncovering the Kremlin’s corruption and misconduct, they enable Russians to form their own opinions rather than be forced to rely on state narratives. They keep vital facts in public view—and their reporting also fuels global sanctions enforcement, uncovers covert influence campaigns, and advances war-crimes accountability.
2. Strengthen Local, Independent Media Ecosystems
People have a right to know how decisions are made, how public resources are used, and whether those in power act in the public interest. Independent, community-rooted media—from local outlets and watchdog groups to podcasters, newsletter writers, online creators, and community radio—makes that possible. NED helps local, community-focused voices provide reliable reporting, investigations, and practical information. Our support also strengthens their organizational capacity, safety practices, and sustainability as alternatives to media captured by states, oligarchs, or organized crime networks.
- Latin America: NED backs public-interest reporting that explains decisions affecting daily life—from schools and clinics to public safety. By putting information in the open, this work strengthens free speech and civic participation and enables citizen oversight of budgets, services, electoral processes, and officials. It also exposes corruption, abuses of public authority, and organized crime’s attempts to capture institutions—giving people the evidence and forums they need to take informed decisions and demand accountability.
- Ukraine: Partners use investigative reporting and open-data tools to track public spending, expose misuse of resources, and monitor wartime procurement. By publishing findings, they promote transparency, inform public debate, and help ensure responsible stewardship of both domestic and international funds. NED also supports efforts to bolster the resilience of Ukraine’s independent media by helping partners build organizational capacity, grow audiences and revenue streams, and counter Kremlin propaganda. This ensures Ukrainians—including those at the front and in occupied territories—have access to life-saving wartime information and stay informed about political developments at both local and national levels.
3. Break Authoritarian Information Blockades
Authoritarian power depends on the control and monopolization of information. NED supports in-country networks, circumvention tools, and alternative distribution pathways so people can access independent reporting and communicate safely—even where media is captured. We also help partners build durable channels—from mirror sites to trusted newsletters—that keep access open.
- North Korea: Defectors and technologists supported by NED have created new ways to break the regime’s information monopoly. By delivering accurate news in and out of the country, this work empowers North Koreans to see beyond propaganda and to think critically about their own circumstances, chipping away at one of the world’s most closed information environments.
- Inside China: Partners help millions navigate and circumvent the country’s complex censorship system—from the “Great Firewall” to strict platform-level controls—empowering citizens to share information, express their views, and access independent reporting.
- CCP Abroad: NED partners have uncovered the CCP’s state-funded propaganda networks and surveillance technology exports. Exposing these operations helps citizens around the world defend their democratic rights, resist manipulation, and harden democratic institutions against infiltration. Our partners have also exposed how the CCP uses coercion to intimidate and silence critics of the regime living outside of China in free societies. By informing and partnering with local authorities, NED partners have helped defend the free speech of those who criticize the CCP.
4. Fuel Innovation to Secure the Future of Free Expression
Democratic leaders must innovate to stay ahead of authoritarian regimes, which continue to invest significant resources in cutting-edge technologies and information control systems. NED backs new tools, formats, and security practices that both bypass repression and institutionalize safer, long-term expression. Innovation also means creative formats—animation, comics, music, meme-literacy, and non-digital storytelling—that can travel farther than traditional news in censored spaces.
- Venezuela: When the Maduro regime tried to crush independent reporting, journalists adopted privacy-preserving methods—including AI-assisted avatars—to protect their identities and be able to keep informing the public safely.
- Russia: Partners developed secure VPN tools now used by hundreds of thousands to access uncensored information, engage in debate, share their views—while building user education and digital-hygiene practices that outlast any single app.
- Cuba: Partners pilot low-bandwidth and offline distribution, mirror sites, and other resilience tools to keep information flowing during Internet throttling and shutdowns—while training partners in operational security so reporting can continue even under duress. Partners prototype censorship-resistant storytelling, like micro-podcasts and music collaborations, which can be distributed via low-data channels and offline forums to reach youth where bandwidth is limited and surveillance is pervasive.
From Havana to Hong Kong, trusted local voices—independent reporters, legal defenders, and community leaders—are creating space for free speech and open information. They take the initiative to approach NED with their own locally developed plans. NED provides support that helps them both break censorship and build resilient, self-reliant institutions. Their work equips people to make their own decisions about their future and hold leaders accountable, and strengthens communities to resist corruption and authoritarian control. Supporting these efforts is both strategy and principle: freedom grows, instability recedes, and truth remains audible.
Read More:
- NED Chairman Peter Roskam in Newsmax: Halt Communist Censorship Before it Reaches U.S. Shores
- Infographic: NED’s Proven Impact Model
- NED Impact Report: Advancing Religious Freedom and Human Dignity
Images are for illustrative purposes only and may not reflect an official NED endorsement or affiliation with the content.
