Political Leadership Program

The Political Leadership Program

In response to requests from political leaders throughout Latin America to address the challenges facing political parties, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) created the Political Leadership Program. This initiative is designed to help young and emerging political leaders develop the skills to lead more modern and responsive political parties in the next century and addresses the issue of party renewal. Because many party challenges are hemispheric, NDI will select a group of young, political activists from Latin American countries to participate in the Political Leadership Program.

OBJECTIVES

• To promote modern, transparent and reliable political organizations;

• To generate new ideas between political organizations;

• To enhance political Leadership from participants;

• To join youth and women into political organizations and give them the opportunity to take leading positions;

• To provide an easy interchange of political training materials and ideas about party renovation;

IMPLEMENTATION
The Leadership Program is implemented in three phases:

Phase I: National Leadership Academies

In each of the participating countries – Ecuador, Mexico and Peru – will take place a Leadership Academy for 30 young political party leaders. The academies will provide training on leadership development themes including: strategic and project planning, leadership skills, party internal democracy, transparency and outreach to new sectors. From these academies, six participants from each country will be selected to participate in a regional seminar.

Phase II: Regional Seminar

The regional seminar will take place in 2010 in Colombia and will include 18 of the participants from the national academies of Ecuador, Mexico and Peru. Drawing on high-level Latin American, European and U.S. political party experts and trainers, NDI helps young politicians develop necessary leadership skills, including communication and political negotiation. Leading political practitioners also provide an overview of mechanisms to reform or democratize parties and improve their outreach to citizens.

Phase III: Party Strengthening Projects

As part of the last phase of the Leadership Program, the young leaders that participated in the regional seminar implement projects to strengthen and improve operations within their respective parties. For one year they will receive NDI technical assistance with implementing their party-strengthening project. The projects help reach a broader audience within the parties and build consensus about initiatives to strengthen parties.

Among the goals of recent projects: enhancing indigenous political participation in Guatemala; reforming party statutes and internal democracy structures in Colombia; promoting women and youth participation in political parties in Mexico; and building the communication and outreach capacity of local branches of political parties in Bolivia.

PARTICIPANT PROFILE

To take part in the Political Leadership Program, applicants from Ecuador, Mexico, Peru must be between 25 to 35 years of age, with significant, practical political experience and current involvement in political party activities. Applicants should demonstrate a long-term commitment to party politics. Participants will also need to be fluent in Spanish, since all sessions will be conducted in Spanish. NDI will cover the expenses related to participating in the program.

For further information contact us at ndiecuador@gmail.com

If you wish to participate in the selection process please take a look at the attached document.