On February 1-2, 2024, participants of the Sunnylands Initiative convened in Seoul, South Korea to reaffirm their commitment to enhancing democratic partnership in the Indo-Pacific region. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the East Asia Institute co-organized the special meeting to highlight the Republic of Korea’s growing role in democratic leadership and to build on the momentum from previous meetings and summits in Anaheim, California; Odawara, Japan; and Sydney, Australia.
The Sunnylands Initiative was established in January 2020 to bring together democracy leaders from across the Indo-Pacific region to discuss challenges, identify opportunities, and propose concrete actions for advancing democratic norms and governance. [Learn more about the Sunnylands Initiative.]
The participants included scholars, opinion leaders, and civil society stakeholders from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Samoa, Thailand, and the United States discussed the state of democracy in the Indo-Pacific, opportunities to grow partnerships between democratic states in the region, and how to strengthen foreign aid for democracy support.
“This meeting was another important opportunity to hear from our Asian partners about the importance of working together in common cause for a stronger democratic order in the region,” said Lynn Lee, director for East Asia at NED. “Our Sunnylands Korean partners were also hard at work engaging their government on increasing democracy support in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.”
After the meeting, the participants issued a joint statement with recommendations for South Korea’s democratic leadership ahead of the 2024 Democracy Summit.
