NIMD Multi-Annual Strategy 2021-25

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11 Youth and underrepresented groups in politics There are 3.5 billion people under the age of 30 living in the world today, comprising the largest young population in history. This population has better access to information and education than ever before. Despite this, youth have a very limited voice in decisions that affect their lives directly. In most countries where NIMD works, discriminatory sociocultural norms deny young people access to, and credibility in, the political arena. This calls for a pro-active response on our side. In 2020, NIMD conducted an analysis of the barriers to the political participation of young people. We gathered best practices and experiences from the network on engaging with young people and supporting their meaningful participation. Based on this analysis, we will further develop specific intervention strategies to increase the participation of youth in politics. The same goes for other under-represented groups, such as ethnic minorities, or the internally displaced. As the definition and position of these groups are country-specific, we will make sure that our political economy analyses explicitly cover under-represented groups so that we can formulate tailor-made intervention strategies to increase their voice and participation in their democracies. 2. Putting the population at the heart of NIMD's work with political actors As we have seen in the previous chapter, politicians, political parties and other democratic institutions need to reinvent their relationship with the electorate. Inclusive democracies require responsive and accountable politicians, ready to engage in a continuous dialogue with the population. NIMD has, in the past, placed a lot of focus on dialogue between political actors. We will continue to do so, as the skills needed for this dialogue are crucial for societies to be able to find peaceful solutions among groups with diverging interests. Aside from this 'horizontal' dialogue between political actors, we now also see a need to support the 'vertical' dialogue between political actors and the population at large. Supporting political actors in developing the skills and attitudes they need to interact with the people in their country will therefore be a top priority in our future programming. We want to support them in their outreach activities towards the population as a whole. From the rural population in the remotest regions to marginalized groups in the capital, from women and youth to minorities: it is this inclusive dialogue that will help political actors to address the needs of the people. This will restore confidence in democratic institutions. We will work on this part of capacity building through dialogue and dedicated training programmes. These programmes will include social media training and
12 sessions on how to counter 'fake news' and the manipulation of information. Social media have become essential communication channels for political actors at this time. Working to make political actors more responsive, means that political parties will remain an important target group for NIMD. Parties play a key role in all democracies. But, in order to reconnect with their voters, politicians will need to take a critical look at how their parties are organized and whether that still fits the bill. Just like other sectors, political parties need to innovate to remain relevant. Our network, dialogue platforms and Democracy Schools help them do that. The decision to focus on responsiveness also implies that we will need to work with actors at all political levels, from regional bodies and national parliaments to provincial and municipal councils. The national level is no longer the standard entry point for NIMD. As we saw in our trend analysis, many issues are – or should be – addressed at a regional or international level. We will continue to conduct thorough political economy analyses to decide on our level of operation. Finally, the focus on responsiveness means more space for thematic dialogues in our programming. NIMD stands ready to facilitate the inclusive democratic dialogue on issues such as natural resource management or the mitigation of climate change. These are challenges with diverse and often conflicting stakeholders. Political actors need to engage with all of them to reach agreements that will only stand a chance of lasting success if they receive the broadest possible support. Our dialogue platforms aim to enable this type of exchange. Where necessary, we will collaborate with other (expert) organizations to benefit from their thematic know-how and to make our support to democracy as effective as possible. 3. Investing in dialogue NIMD’s distinctive feature is our capacity to foster dialogue. NIMD and the partners in our network are experts in bringing political parties and other actors together. As a network, we will need to continue to invest in our dialogue skills as well as expanding these skills to include facilitating multistakeholder platforms. Moreover, the NIMD network is becoming more and more aware of the importance of conflict resolution in our work. Sometimes, existing tensions or conflicts need to be addressed first before parties will agree to come to the dialogue table, or decide to enroll in one of our Schools. Therefore, NIMD will add conflict resolution skills to the training modules for the NIMD network staff.
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NIMD Multi-Annual Strategy 2021-25

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