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Founded | November 18, 1983 |
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Founder | Carl Gershman Allen Weinstein[1] |
Type | 501(c)(3) non-profit NGO |
52-1344831 | |
Location |
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Origins | U.S. Congress resolution H.R. 2915 |
Area served | Worldwide (outside United States) |
Key people | Damon Wilson (President) |
Website | www |
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization in the United States founded in 1983 with the stated aim of advancing democracy worldwide,[2][3][4] by promoting political and economic institutions, such as political groups, trade unions, free markets, and business groups.[5]
The NED was created as a bipartisan, private, non-profit corporation, and acts as a grant-making foundation.[2] It is funded primarily by an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress.[4][6][5] In addition to its grants program, the NED also supports and houses the Journal of Democracy, the World Movement for Democracy, the International Forum for Democratic Studies, the Reagan–Fascell Fellowship Program, the Network of Democracy Research Institutes, and the Center for International Media Assistance.[7][8]
Upon its founding, the NED assumed some former activities of the CIA. Political groups, activists, academics, and some governments have said the NED has been an instrument of United States foreign policy helping to foster regime change.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15]
NED was founded at the initiative of a small group of Washington insiders, who believed that the United States needed a 'quango' (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization) to promote liberal democracy and counter communist influence abroad ... .
NED is dedicated to fostering the growth of a wide range of democratic institutions abroad, including political parties, trade unions, free markets and business organizations
13: On NED and other QUANGO programs...
China, echoing such governments as Venezuela and Egypt, has previously taken aim at the NED, established in 1983 and funded by Congress to promote democracy worldwide. The Foreign Ministry in August distributed a lengthy report that named the NED as a U.S. intelligence front and listed its 20-year history of funding political groups in Hong Kong
The National Endowment for Democracy, which receives nearly all its funds from Congress, is a conduit through which the US government has given millions of dollars to political and other protest groups in countries from Albania to Haiti
Ignatius's analysis illuminates an important but understudied development in the final years of the Cold War: the rise of private democracy organizations as tools of U.S. foreign policy
Left out of the above count are victorious overthrows of democratically-elected governments in Bulgaria (1990), Albania (1992) and Haiti (late 1990s) and destabilisation in Panama, Cuba and Venezuela. The next section will demonstrate that the latest feathers in NED's cap are the colour revolutions
It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA. We saw that in the 1960's and that's why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that's why the endowment was created.