•  united nations
• Wednesday, May 11, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Organisations that receive grants for democratic assistance are largely dependent on the international donor community for financial support, according to the findings of a survey presented at a seminar hosted by the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF).

Nearly half the respondents said that between 76 and 100 per cent of their organisation's annual budgets came from international donors.

The survey was conducted by Dr. Joel D. Barkan, who works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSI), in collaboration with donor organizations, including UNDEF.

Barkan, who presented the findings of the survey, said 1, 473 leaders of organisations that received democracy assistance, participated between January 2008 and September 2010 and came from different parts of the world.

Three quarters were self-described leaders of civil society organisations dedicated to democratisation process or human rights, and the rest were journalists, government officials, and leaders of political parties or other professionals.

The study was conducted under the auspices of the World Movement for Democracy, which is a global network of democrats, non-governmental actors, practitioners, academics, policymakers and funders.

Nearly 40 per cent of the respondents answered that the greatest risk to civil society organisations receiving democratic assistance was of becoming overly dependent on such support and not being able to mount programmes on their own.

65 per cent made the statement that democratic assistance 'made a great difference' in helping their organisations achieve their goals.

When asked to identify the two principal obstacles to the realization of democratisation in their countries, three quarters of the respondents said it was a combination of government elites determined to retain power, or political leaders not sufficiently committed to democratic reforms.

Dr Larry Diamond of Stanford University, a leading figure in democracy studies, gave an overview of democracy in the world today. 'We can document, since about 2005, a global recession of democracy.' he stated. He said that' we have seen a continuous decline of freedom in the world and fewer democracies' today compared to a decade ago, 'as measured by Freedom Hhouse we are down from 123 democracies to 114'.

Reasons for this, he said, are almost always 'poor governance, corruption, lack of transparency and accountability, and disappointing performance in human development'.

He said that the United Nations has a unique function especially in 'none very democratic contexts' where certain countries, for example the United States, would not be welcome to give grants. 'The United Nations can do things in places where individual bilateral donors probably couldn't-- in particular UNDEF for example can do some innovative work that pushes out the boundaries to support civic and civil society activity…'

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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