The occasion of Summit for Democracy, organized by the government of the United States on 9th and 10th December 2021 provides a historical window of opportunity for the democratic community worldwide to come together to advance a global conversation on democracy, raise public awareness on the value of democracy, place issues on the public agenda and learn from each other to reinvigorate democratic governance and practices worldwide, across both newer and older democracies.
A global multistakeholder coalition for democracy, therefore, convened in a virtual forum for 24 hours on 7th December 2021. The purpose of the Global Democracy Coalition Forum was to facilitate a global conversation on democracy, as input to the Summit for Democracy.
The Forum sought to provide a platform for voices, actors, and issues that were not part of the official Summit and aimed to contribute to broadening and enriching the discussions of the Summit, focusing both on challenges and opportunities for democracy in different contexts and innovative solutions to address these.
The Global Democracy Coalition Forum consisted of 41 webinars organized by 47 democracy organizations from around the world with over 245 experts, democracy activists, political and civil society leaders, and multilateral organizations from all regions.
The discussions covered everything from elections, women’s political participation, disinformation, transnational repression, the state of democracy globally, in the United States, in Africa, and in the Pacific, the role of youth, corruption, and malign finance, democracy and development, freedom of expression and the role of a free media, among many others.
Recordings from all the webinars can be accessed on the Global Democracy Coalition website as a repository of knowledge resources on democracy.
Ideally, the multi-stakeholder coalition will continue to collaborate beyond the 2021 Summit, ahead of the 2022 Summit and beyond, in order to continue placing democracy front and center of the global agenda, learn from each other, and share lessons learned and good practices on how to advance, nurture and protect democracy worldwide.
This document provides an overview of the discussions held and of the main recommendations made by Forum participants to the Summit for Democracy.