Norman Eisen, Mario Picon, Robin J. Lewis, Renzo Falla, and Lilly Blumenthal
On February 14, 2022, two months after the first Summit for Democracy, the U.S. Department of State released written commitments from 56 governments focused on strengthening democracy, combatting corruption, and defending human rights. Now the post-summit Year of Action can begin in earnest. As two of us discussed in a post right after the Summit, for the event to achieve its objectives, civil society, the private sector, and other good governance champions must work with and hold governments accountable for the implementation of concrete, measurable, and meaningful commitments.
From our initial survey, we observe significant variation in terms of the specificity and nature of commitments published thus far. Here, we offer a brief snapshot of the distribution of countries with published commitments, the range of those commitments, and their significance.[1] Our initial reactions are preliminary; this post offers a roadmap for the deeper reading and analysis of the commitments that we and many others will undertake.
