National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

The National Endowment for Democracy is a private, nonprofit organization established by the U.S. government in 1983 to promote democracy around the world. The NED is primarily funded by a congressional appropriation that goes to the NED through the U.S. Department of State. For many years it operated with an annual budget of approximately $30 million, a figure that increased sharply after 2000 and by 2005 stood at approximately $100 million. Most of NED's funds go to four core grantees representing the two main U.S. political parties, U.S. business, and U.S. labor: the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS). The rest of NED's funds go to discretionary grants, primarily prodemocratic, nongovernmental organizations based in or working in new or potential democracies.

NED's programs in Latin America focus on promoting free and fair elections, political party development, democratic civic education, political and civil rights, women's political participation, union-building, and market-oriented economic reform policies. Since 2000, NED's Latin America work has been largely concentrated in the Andean region, Central America, Cuba, and Mexico.

NED maintains that its work is nonpartisan and serves a broad prodemocratic agenda, not U.S. foreign policy interests with respect to particular foreign governments. Nevertheless, NED's activities sometimes provoke accusations of political interventionism, such as NED's support for the political opposition in the 1990 Nicaraguan elections, which ended Sandinista rule, and NED's support for civic and political activists challenging the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

See alsoDemocracy; United States-Latin American Relations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carothers, Thomas. Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, 1999.

                                    Thomas Carothers