October 11, 2017 was International Day of the Girl Child. This year’s theme was ‘EmPOWER Girls: Before, during and after crises.’ According to the United Nations, adolescent girls in conflict zones are 90 percent more likely to be out of school compared to their peers in conflict-free countries. We know, from experience, that although women often […]
The BCI Team has been busy and working on inspiring activities with amazing people. Here’s what we’ve been up to… Carlo and Francesca travelled to Papua New Guinea (PNG) in June to support programs of the National Democratic Institute (NDI). In PNG, we worked with political parties, civil society and religious leaders towards mitigating election-related violence […]
Guest blog by Shannon O’Connell. An edited version of this article on gender equality in political parties appears in an upcoming publication of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs on 21st Century political parties. Gender equality. It’s a phrase that has influenced much of the political debate in recent years, and it’s an important […]
Guest post by Eva Maydell (Paunova), MEP A crude piece of graffiti adorns a street wall in Sofia, Bulgaria. ‘If elections changed anything, they’d be outlawed’ it reads. It has been there since the early 90s, back when the country’s sharply bi-polar political system and its tokens were ripe for parody. 25 years later, the […]
BCI consultants have a long and fond relationship with the Balkans. Both Carlo and Francesca have been engaged again on client projects in Kosovo and Macedonia so we’re paying close attention to elections this week in Macedonia. It’s complicated and messy, but worthy of scrutiny. For a comprehensive review of the background to these early parliamentary […]
With much of the world’s attention focused on debates between presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the United States, we wanted to highlight another set of debates in Morocco. On October 7, 2016 Moroccan voters head to the polls in the 10th parliamentary elections in 60 years. While the media are characterising this as an election […]
BCI’s President, Francesca Binda, recently returned from Jordan where she participated in the pre-election assessment organized by the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute. The English statement is below. Conditions in Place for Democratic Elections in Jordan; Parliamentary Credibility Depends on Enacting Will of Voters, IRI and NDI Joint Assessment Finds Published Date: […]
Guest post: Siham Bojji is a Moroccan political expert working on democracy and development programs in the Middle East and North Africa. Francesca Binda contributed to this post. After more than a dozen years of working with political parties in Morocco and continued direct interaction with politicians in Morocco, I still have a fundamental question: what […]
Last month we invited a Labour British member of the European Parliament to tell us why UK citizens should vote to stay in the European Union. This month we invited Conservative Member of Parliament, Tom Pursglove to give us the opposite view. Mr. Pursglove is the Member of Parliament for Corby & East Northamptonshire Would you […]
As much European chatter these days is about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP), another trade agreement between Europe and Canada is close to being finalised. While the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) has opponents on both sides of the Atlantic, the new Canadian Liberal government has called it a “gold-standard” agreement. We invited […]