Latin America and Caribbean
FY2025 Spending by Country | NED Active Grant Listing
Latin America and the Caribbean confronted mounting pressures in 2025, from entrenched authoritarianism and institutional fragility to criminal networks and foreign autocratic influence. These forces strained rights protections and weakened the institutions essential for democratic life. Yet across the region, civic and business leaders, religious figures, independent journalists, labor organizers, and community groups continued driving democratic accountability with extraordinary persistence.
NED and its Core Institutes supported locally led efforts across the region, providing strategic grants that helped communities seize democratic openings, resist increased repression, and sustain essential work. In Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, civic groups maintained independent information flows, documented human rights violations, and protected the few remaining spaces for citizen voice under severe constraints. As China and Russia deepened engagement in the region, NED-supported researchers and journalists helped citizens understand how this influence affects domestic governance and can erode national sovereignty.
In Peru, El Salvador, and Mexico, engaged citizens worked to safeguard institutional checks, broaden access to credible information, and sustain civic dialogue. In Bolivia, local organizations played a central role in promoting electoral transparency through voter education, citizen observation, and monitoring efforts that reinforced public trust.
Elsewhere, from Ecuador to Colombia, local partners focused on improving governance, strengthening legislative oversight, and expanding participation in public life. In Guatemala and Bolivia, democratic openings allowed civic actors to press for transparency and democratic renewal.
Across Latin America and the Caribbean, democratic resilience grew through steady, constituent-driven work rooted in transparency, participation, and fundamental rights—efforts that NED support helped sustain and expand.
The Colombian investigative outlet Cuestión Pública exposed how global shipping giants were repeatedly exploited by traffickers to move 265 tons of cocaine—nearly half of all Colombian maritime seizures over six years. Their reporting, based on leaked prosecutorial emails, shipping manifests, and international data analysis, revealed gaps in corporate oversight and government enforcement that enabled sophisticated trafficking networks.
Disrupting these routes has a direct impact beyond Colombia: every break in the supply chain reduces the flow of narcotics into the United States, weakens transnational criminal networks, and improves security across the hemisphere. In response, the companies involved committed to strengthening anti-smuggling controls, and port authorities began reevaluating inspection protocols, illustrating how data-driven journalism can move powerful state and corporate actors toward greater accountability.
IMPACT SPOTLIGHT: INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM DISRUPTS GLOBAL DRUG TRAFFICKING ROUTES
VENEZUELA SPOTLIGHT: SAFEGUARDING DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS AMID CRISIS
For more than two decades, NED has supported Venezuelan citizens and civic organizations working to defend human rights, expand civic space, and preserve democratic possibility under one of the hemisphere’s most repressive regimes. Venezuela has produced a severe political, economic, and humanitarian crisis—marked by thousands of political prisoners, extrajudicial killings, information controls, and the displacement of more than eight million people under the Maduro regime. Given this scale, Venezuela is now among NED’s top ten countries by spending, ensuring sustained support to frontline civil society.
The backbone of NED’s Venezuela portfolio is centered on supporting a democratic transition, defending human rights, and enabling access to independent information. NED’s human rights partners document abuses, protect due process, expose crimes against humanity, and bring credible evidence before international mechanisms—contributing to the UN Fact-Finding Mission, advancing the International Criminal Court investigation into Nicolas Maduro, and ensuring sustained global attention to the crisis. NED’s investments in independent media strengthen journalists and outlets that provide reliable information to citizens and international audiences, helping to mitigate the effects of censorship and enabling transparent reporting amid restricted conditions. Together, these two pillars represent the majority of NED’s support and are essential to sustaining civic resilience in an increasingly closed information space.
Complementing this work, NED has, for more than two decades, supported Venezuelan partners who advance peaceful, democratic avenues for civic participation—helping citizens understand their rights, monitor government malfeasance, document irregularities, and engage safely and peacefully in public life. NED helps democratic actors build durable institutions, engage citizens, and document and challenge unfair electoral conditions.
In 2023, 2.4 million Venezuelan citizens participated in a primary election organized by the democratic opposition and, in July 2024, reasserted their political voice by voting overwhelmingly for the democratic opposition, even amid severe restrictions. Civil society partners supported by NED worked to expand access to information, support voter education, and safeguard civic participation. As repression intensified following the election, NED partners provided assistance to activists and community leaders facing threats and violence so they could safely continue their work.
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Lipset Lecture: Leopoldo López on Networks of Freedom
The Twenty-Second Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World was delivered by Venezuelan prodemocracy activist and World Liberty Congress cofounder Leopoldo López, who spoke on how pro-freedom, censorship-resistant technology can help sustain and expand democracy movements in some of the world’s most repressive environments. The event also featured a moderated conversation between López and Vera Bergengruen of The Wall Street Journal.
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Speech: Damon Wilson on Cuba’s Path to Freedom at Directorio’s 35th Anniversary
At the 35th Anniversary Conference of Directorio Democrático Cubano in Miami, NED President and CEO Damon Wilson called for urgent support for the Cuban people in their peaceful struggle for freedom. Speaking alongside international allies, members of Congress, and Cuban exile leaders, Wilson underscored NED’s ongoing support for Cuban partners advancing liberty, democratic resilience, and security in the region.
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Op-ed: When Free Speech Falls, So Does Freedom
In the Miami Herald, NED President and CEO Damon Wilson and NED Board member, former Senator Mel Martinez, make the case for restoring U.S. support to defend free speech and independent voices in Cuba.
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Impact Report: Venezuela – Supporting Citizens’ Democratic Rights Amid Crisis
NED’s Venezuela portfolio focuses on strengthening the civic infrastructure that allows citizens to defend their rights, hold officials accountable, and participate safely in public life.
