What we do

DIPD collaborates first and foremost with political parties, political movements, and cross-party platforms, but also with civil society actors, the media, and other actors. The criteria for DIPD’s collaborators is that they take part in the democratic process and commit themselves to promote democratization.

DIPD

The framework for DIPD’s collaborations is the partnership approach, which implies, that every partnership must formulate its own focus and goals which has to correspond with DIPD’s strategy.

Partnerships
Every partnership formulates its own focus and goals, corresponding with the DIPD strategy
Party-to-party Partnerships: A partnership between a political party in Denmark and political parties or party-like groups or movements in a developing country. It can be a collaboration between sister parties, which means that the parties share common ideological views. For instance, they might both be based on a liberal or social democratic foundation. The sister aspect can also somewhat looser in nature. For example, in countries where parties have been formed in the wake of conflict or rebellion.	Multiparty Partnerships: A partnership containing either several parties from the same country or parties from different countries. The multiparty partnerships can also include other partners such as non-government organizations, that involve political parties in their work, or media platforms such as newspapers, local radio, tv-stations or think thanks that makes analyses on political parties’ policy and behaviour.

DIPD has 5 strategic goals for 2021-2025 

1. Political parties formulate and communicate political solutions 

DIPD will work to ensure that political parties in developing countries formulate political solutions to significant challenges and that they engage in dialogue with citizens and communicate their policies. 

2. Political parties are inclusive and engaging organizations 

DIPD will work for more inclusive and engaging political parties. Engaging citizens and securing political influence is a core task for political parties, and DIPD supports democratic representation through political parties. This is done, among other things, by working purposefully with gender equality, young people in politics, ethnic and geographical representation.

3. Political parties are democratic organizations 

DIPD will work to ensure that political parties in developing countries are well-organized, transparent and internally democratic, with an active member democracy at local and national level. 

4. Political parties participate in cross-party cooperation and dialogue 

DIPD will work to promote cross-party cooperation and dialogue between political parties in developing countries. We will also work to promote dialogue between these and Danish parliamentary parties in order to contribute to well-functioning multi-party democracies.

5. DIPD will learn from and document our results 

To support the first four goals, DIPD will base its work on learning and systematically document and disseminate its results.

How to reach our goals

Our partnership approach means that each partnership formulates its own focus and sets its goals within DIPD's strategy. In concrete terms, this means that the initiatives that we present below are content and methods that the partnerships can choose to use, depending on what they decide is best in the specific context. DIPD basically works in the following ways:

DIPD exchanges ideas and experiences

DIPD facilitates the exchanges of idea, experiences and practices between Danish political parties and partners in developing countries as well as between partner organizations. We do this through:

• Political delegations visiting Denmark and the partner organizations in developing countries respectively
• Meetings, seminars, and conferences in Denmark and in the partnership countries – both physically and online
• Supporting political networks and building relations between political parties in Denmark and in the developing countries

DIPD trains the leaders of tomorrow

DIPD contributes to the training of members of political parties in developing countries. DIPD’s contribution uses the democratic experiences, that is rooted in the parties of the Danish Parliament, as a point of departure and supports the development of political and organizational capacity of our partner organizations. Some training sessions* are held by members of Danish political parties, while others are held by partner organizations with support from DIPD.

The capacity building* strengthens the political leadership on all levels. It strengthens the involvement and engagement of underrepresented groups in society, so that they can better manage the political tasks internally within in party and externally.

DIPD contributes to the development of democratic political party organizations

DIPD works with the development of democratic political parties by promoting:

• Internal decision-making process
• Political leadership
• Membership structures
• Financial sustainability

Organizational development is based on the partner organizations own goals and emphasises the importance of transparency, responsibility, and efficiency. This includes among other things leadership development, organizing politically, holdings of national congress, making membership structures, fundraising, and supporting financial management.

DIPD supports dialogue and cross-political collaboration

Denmark has a lot of experience with evolving a collaborating democracy, where cross-political dialogue, binding partnerships and political agreements contributes to democratic stability. DIPD shares these experiences with our international partners in order to support and facilitate political dialogue- and partnership processes in developing countries. This can be done through cross-political dialogue meetings, conferences, or alike.

DIPD supports political networks and relations

DIPD is set on constructing and supporting cross-political networks and relations between political parties in Denmark and developing countries. Other than working with building partnerships, DIPD facilitates the contact between Danish political parties, political parties in developing countries and these between. Sometimes DIPD’s contribution is establishing contact, other times it’s the beginning of a partnership or collaboration.

DIPD collects and shares knowledge

DIPD supports the work of political parties and cross-political platforms by collaborating with universities, institutes that work with democracy, think thanks, networks of institutions that work with democracy and other institutions. DIPD’s work is based on knowledge and we prioritize documentation and learning as essential for developing professionally.