Talk:European Partnership for Democracy

lapelwoods

 * What I think should be changed (include citations):

The European Partnership for Democracy (EPD) is membership-based network of non-profit organisations working on supporting democracy worldwide. EPD is the most important European network of specialised organisations actively involved in democracy support in European Union partner countries. EPD is a multi-specialised European community of practitioners composed of eighteen European organisations from thirteen EU Member States with activities in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. EPD Secretariat is headquartered in the European district of Brussels, Belgium.

The organisations composing the European Partnership for Democracy have a global presence and implemented over the past five years 200 democracy assistance projects around the world in roughly 180 countries for a total of 400 million in funding, mostly coming from the EU and/or EU Member States.

EPD was set up in 2008 with the “purpose of making a contribution to, and reinforcing the impact of European endeavours in democracy assistance across the world. In doing so, the organisation is by nature a community of practice bringing together the know-how of European organisations implementing democracy support programmes ''.” (Article 3 of the EPD statutes)

Acting as a Community of Practice, EPD mobilises the network expertise, among others, through joint-programming, joint-advocacy, thematic and geographical working groups, and peer-to-peer ad hoc support to encourage interaction between them for the benefit of consolidating the impact of democracy support assistance programmes. That is, a group of organisations which work together to improve the way they operate in the realm of democracy support. This notion does not only apply to EPD as a network and its institutional development, but also to all the actions, joint statements, coalitions and partnerships constructed under the EPD banner.

EPD has direct insight and hands-on experience of the various dimensions of democratic governance working in parallel in a functioning democracy. EPD bring together organisations with specialisations of working on:


 * different fields of democracy support: media development, civic tech, political parties, local authorities, elections, the rule of law, women participation, parliamentary support, multi-stakeholder, policy dialogue, political and civil rights, civil society capacity building, ICT and civic and political education;


 * different levels of society: political leadership, elected representatives, state officials, civil society and grassroots community representatives.

EPD is the most important network of organisations working on democracy assistance operating at the EU level, and advocate of democracy assistance at the European Union level, working directly with EU officials. The EPD serves as a platform for knowledge exchange and joint advocacy initiatives and as an interface for project implementation in third countries. EPD Multi Annual Strategy for 2020–2023 further enacts that the organisation aims at implementing, influencing and developing democracy support activities in the European context (at EU and EU member states levels), with a focus on safeguarding democracy, supporting democratic inclusion and innovation, and embedding these principles in the digital sphere.

EPD has long advocated to put Democracy at the center of EU external policies, and build upon it to improve development and cooperation policies outcomes. Building on the expertise of the network, EPD participates in EU level consultations and roadmaps and contributed with policy inputs to the EU Action Plan for Democracy and Human Rights 2020-2024. Another example of EPD strategic position is the adoption of the 2019 Council Conclusions on Democracy by EU member states.

The members of EPD have come together to create joint approaches that make the most of the comparative advantage of the network. Due to the expertise from different sectors and the variety of experience in terms of partners, EPD builds on a holistic approach to democratic development. EPD has developed different joint approaches that are implemented around the world, either stand alone or within other projects.


 * SPACE (Strategic Partnership Approach to Creating a Conducive Environment) is a 3-step approach that has been developed to design programmes and projects that contribute to creating space for civil society, drawing on the unique mix of skills and expertise of 18 European organisations that support democracy in more than 100 countries worldwide. It starts out with a Democratic Institutions for a Conducive Environment (DICE) assessment aimed at creating a better understanding of how democratic institutions drive or hinder the development of civil society space in the country. DICE is tailored to the local context, as it uses tools for stakeholder mapping and Political Economy Analysis (PEA) to identify opportunities for influencing positive change.


 * INSPIRED (Integrated Support Programme for Inclusive Reform and Democratic Dialogue) is a method of policy dialogue that aims to promote transparency and accountability by guiding policy dialogue through three phases: collective assessment, consensus-building, and monitoring. In particular, it encourages international aid organisations and practitioners to make use of policy dialogue, by enhancing its inclusiveness and putting in place participatory mechanisms that make it more representative and legitimate.

Former Spanish Primer Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero took notably part in an INSPIRED mission to Cape Verde in 2018 to promote the labour rights of women who work in the domestic service.

EPD's organisational structure is composed of a General Assembly composed of all members organisation, a Board of Directors and a Secretariat.

EPD is managed by a Board of Directors composed of six members elected among the organisations composing EPD. The Board is composed of a president, currently Antonella Valmorbida, the Secretary General of the European Association for Local Democracy, a vice-president, currently Thijs Berman, the Executive Director of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy and a treasurer, currently Anthony Smith, the Chief Executive Officer of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

The EPD secretariat is based in Brussels and is in charge of coordinating the 18 members, with the aim to further reinforce the cooperation between them and with the EU institutions, as to facilitate their policy and programming goals.


 * Article 19
 * ALDA - European Association for Local Democracy
 * Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy
 * Club de Madrid
 * Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy
 * Democracy Reporting International
 * Demo Finland
 * EDGE Foundation
 * Elbarlament
 * Election-Watch.EU
 * ePaństwo Foundation
 * European Exchange
 * Netherlands Helsinki Committee
 * Institute for Political Sciences of The Catholic University of Portugal
 * People in Need
 * Oslo Centre
 * Westminster Foundation for Democracy
 * French Agency for Media Cooperation

EPD Secretariat is a member of Human Rights and Democracy Network, CONCORD and SDG Watch Europe.

EPD collaborates with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the European Democracy Hub, a permanent hub for expertise on democracy support seeks to fill the gap between programme evaluations and global assessments of the state of democracy, with analysis and evidence-gathering of European democracy support policies and programming.

I have updated the article thoroughly because the information provided don't reflect the reality and actuality of the organisation. Thanks for helping with adjusting the tone and sections if needed.
 * Why it should be changed:

Coffeebreak12 (talk) 10:43, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi User:Coffeebreak12 and thanks for your work on this draft. I think it needs some changes before it is suitable for going live as an article. 1) As you anticipate, there need to be changes of tone. Generally the draft is written like an organisation's own web site, not a Wikipedia article. "a major advocate of democracy assistance" / "an important source of knowledge in democratic and electoral assistance" - these are peacock terms. The article needs to state verifiable facts and point to where they can be verified, preferably third-party sources independent of EPD itself. 2) We don't allow external links in body text. 3) We shouldn't have unreferenced sections: not much of this article is sourced, and the Mission and Approaches sections are completely without citations. 4) The readership of Wikipedia is lay people and we need to write in a way they can understand. "EPD seeks horizontal and vertical coverage of the key players within a democratic system and its ability to straddle the academic, policy and practitioner worlds." What does this mean in ordinary language? Does seeking an ability mean they don't have the ability? 5) DBpedia (your reference 1) is a site with statements harvested from Wikipedia, so it is not a suitable source for Wikipedia articles. Please have a go at revising the draft and then remake your request or ask on my Talk page. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:59, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi User:MartinPoulter! Thank you very much for your kind and comprehensive support on this. I have adjusted the article based on your suggestions and applied all of them. I hope it complies now fully with the Wikipedia guidelines. Thank you in advance for your continuous support. I submitted the application for the publication. Feel welcome to let me know if any problem remains on the page. Coffeebreak12 14:32, 14 October 2021 (UTCC)
 * It's going in the right direction. There is still an external link in body text and there are lots of access date errors that need fixing, usually by reversing the order of the numbers. Some text is evaluative rather than descriptive: "it is therefore paramount for links to be made...", "...that must work in parallel in a functioning democracy", "...bringing together in an effective partnership...". "EPD is able to take a more holistic approach..." more holistic than what? "That is, a group of organisations which work together because, by doing so, they can substantially improve the way they operate in the realm of democracy support." needs a grammar fix. "EPD is the first Community of Practice on democracy assistance operating at the EU level" is too similar to the source text and needs rephrasing. All the text needs checking for similarity to the source. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:32, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi User:MartinPoulter! I am really grateful for your suggestions and help in alining this article with the community standards. I have adopted all the change you advised. Let me know how I can improve it again or if it's ready to be approved. Best regards, Coffeebreak12 17:14, 12 November 2021 (UTCC)


 * If you want to help other editors contribute to this article, it would help if you could find external sources, as independent as possible from the EDP, that talk about the EDP, and list them here for us: what is it? what does it really do? how is it different from NED/IRI/NDI/USAID that implement(ed) US foreign policy by selectively overthrowing unfriendly governments and tentatively supporting reform (e.g. maybe women should be allowed to drive) in friendly dictatorships? is EDP's main activity money transfers? do the money transfers function as an investment like foreign aid (I haven't checked recent data, but older data estimate that foreign "aid" generally gave a 400% or so profit back to the donating country)? where are the public discussion forums run by the EDP? how strongly does the EDP promote free-licensed software as a key to democracy in today's world dominated by GAFAM? Does the EDP promote free-licensed democracy software such as LiquidFeedback for online deliberation for other countries, or does it rather promote vendor lock-in software and opaque, secretive, behind-closed-doors decision-making as in traditional "democracies"? As a reader of this article, I would expect (or at least hope) to find answers to these sorts of questions, based on external sources, not on what EDP says about itself. Boud (talk) 17:34, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply and links that you posted at User talk:Boud. To anyone who's interested in looking through these links and seeing if their content is notable before I do, please go ahead, keeping in mind that Coffeebreak12 has a COI, but is being fully open about it. There are four non-EPD links, and two EPD links that might be usable for what the EPD says about itself. Boud (talk) 15:26, 24 November 2021 (UTC)