U.S. Democracy Promotion Efforts, Tunisia Selected

The U.S. State Department has announced more details about Tunisia’s selection as one of the inaugural winners for the Democracy Partnership Challenge. The Partnership’s purpose is to help various country’s consolidate their democratic institutions. The Tunisian application specifically requested support to “reform public administration, the security sector and the judiciary, support regional development, and promote the role of civil society to succeed in their transition to a democratic state.” The Community of Democracies, the Partnership’s host organization, now asks international partners to “pay it forward” to help these countries develop their democratic institutions.

At the opening of the Tom Lantos Institute, an institute to promote “tolerance and support minority issues in central and eastern Europe and in the world,” Secretary Clinton said, ”let us work across all sectors of society and all the lines that we too easily believe divide us, to strengthen and support democracy, civil society, and the rule of law, and to protect the rights of minorities, to make sure that when justice is served, it is administered with due process and judicial integrity, not political vengeance or partisan meddling.”