ANNUAL REPORT 2015

Democracy Reporting International

DRI helps support local ways of promoting the universal right of citizens to participate in the political life of their country.

From the Executive Team

2015 was a special year for DRI, as we celebrated the organisation's ten-year anniversary. Our credo is well expressed by one of the EU's founding fathers, Jean Monnet:

 "Nothing changes without individuals, nothing lasts without institutions." 

We work with people and we aim at changing institutions. Concretely, we accompanied the framers of the new Tunisian constitution across several years to draft a constitution and ensure that it is actually implemented. The initial enthusiasm of 2011 has disappeared in Tunisia, but it has set off a process of re-building the state that will hopefully guarantee the aspirations of the uprising.

DRI has become a decentralised organisation with a global reach. The majority of our colleagues work on the ground, in seven country offices, and on missions in many more places. Our more than 50 team members come from 16 different countries. We have learned that to be effective we have to engage with partners on an ongoing basis. We need to be available at the right moments, and to understand how contexts evolve.

DRI's approach – cooperative rather than confrontational – and our focus on public policy also makes us a typical think tank. Yet the organisation is deeply action-oriented, carrying out many activities and directly engaging with thousands of interlocutors in countries where change is happening, which is more typical of NGOs. Thus, we consider ourselves a do-and-think tank.

Our ten-year anniversary was also a time for reflection. We brought many of our colleagues to Berlin to discuss DRI's way forward for tackling democracy challenges, and we held a Panel Debate on the future of democracy, together with Humboldt University in Berlin. We ended the anniversary with celebration. We are grateful that in ten years DRI has become a stable organisation, despite the unstable environments we operate in. Our gratitude goes to all those who made that happen: the founders, the team, the supervisory board, our partners in the countries where we work, and everybody else by our side over the past decade. We are also grateful to those who support our projects financially. We would not exist without funders who are convinced by our projects, such as the European Union, the governments of Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Financial Review


WHERE WE WORKED
2015

Ukraine

In 2015, our Ukraine team monitored political reforms and provided analysis on a range of issues, such as a new election law and decentralisation. At conferences in Kyiv, Odessa, Brussels and Berlin throughout the year, DRI met with decision-makers to highlight shortcomings in the political reforms. By partnering with the Institute of International Relations of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, DRI reached beyond the Kyiv circles and worked with students across the country to shed light on Ukraine's progress. 

Pakistan

In Pakistan, DRI assessed local government elections in three provinces - Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, and Punjab - and worked with citizen groups and the newly established National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) to advocate for democratic reforms to bring political stability to the country and help maintain a key trade agreement, the Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+).

Myanmar

In Yangon, our team of experts supported citizen groups that monitored Myanmar's historic 2015 elections and advised decision-makers on democratic reforms for the country's transition. 

Just days after Myanmar's Union Election Commission (UEC) released the final results of the November election, DRI quickly produced interactive maps of the results, using public data on Myanmar's electoral boundaries, and The Myanmar Timesnational election spreadsheet. The maps were also featured on the front page of The Myanmar Times.

Tunisia

In Tunisia, we worked with citizens and decision-makers on the decentralisation process and the implementation of the new constitution. Among other reforms, DRI supported the development of a legal framework for the future Constitutional Court, which will guard new constitutional guarantees. 

LIBYA

In 2015, DRI worked with members of the Libyan Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA) and their advisors as well as with civil society groups that accompanied the constitutional process.

The CDA played a vital role in addressing some of the deep-rooted causes for conflict, such as the balance of power between the three historic regions of Libya, the role of minorities, the governance of natural resources and the system of government.

Jordan

In a political context where little democratic progress was made at the national level, DRI launched the first-ever collective advocacy campaign to support local governance reforms in Jordan.

"Thanks to the communication session provided by DRI, we successfully convinced our mayor to hire a media and communication officer at the municipality in Kerak. This will definitely improve the outreach to citizens and make their voices heard." 

The "Local Democracy Consortium" included seven Jordanian civil society groups, which advocated throughout 2015 for stronger laws on decentralisation and supported municipalities on issues such as working with the media.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRI and the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) are jointly working with eleven Congolese citizen groups to prepare an independent and nationally-owned mechanism for verifying upcoming elections and to conduct regular evaluations of the electoral cycle in the country.

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR FUNDING PARTNERS