International IDEA’s Council welcomes its newest Member State Luxembourg

International IDEA’s 32 Member States met in Stockholm on 10 April 2019 and welcomed Luxemburg as their new Member, which joined the organization in December 2018. Together, the Member States form the Council, the governing body of the Institute. Belgium and Spain are the Co-Chairs and lead the Council in 2019. 

Together with its advisory committee and the Board of Advisers, the Council members discussed International IDEA’s efforts on ICT, Elections, and Democracy. Particularly, matters on the global concerns around cyber security and how to harness the cooperation of electoral management bodies in facing threats to the integrity of electoral processes was discussed.

Additionally, an important issue of the meeting was the role of cryptocurrencies and political finance. International IDEA has focused on the use of cryptocurrencies and their use in the financing of political parties and election campaigns.

Another key theme of the meeting was the Global State of Democracy first launched in 2017 which aims to provide evidence-based analysis on the global and regional state of democracy and inform policy was another key theme of the meeting. The Council and Board members discussed the GSoD In Focus reports, which are a series of focused briefs to highlight specific aspects of the report using data updated from the GSoD Indices, most recently on the GSOD data, the Sustainable Development Goals and Political Gender Equality.