USA gives world democracies a boost to the tune of almost a €billion in two years

US President Joe Biden announced more funding to bolster global democracies amid claims his government has made little progress in its foreign policy of advancing human rights and democracy, according to Dawn.

Biden announced on Wednesday he planned $690 million in funding to support free and fair elections, help fight corruption and advance technologies that support democratic governments at the second White House-led Summit for Democracy.

He announced over $400 million for similar programmes in 2021 when he last held this event. So in two years the USA has funded democratic countries with almost one €billion.

“We’re turning the tide here. As we often say, we’re at an inflection point in history here, when the decisions we make today are going to affect the course of our world for the next several decades for certain,” Biden said.

Freedom House, A Washington-based political non-profit organisation said recently that global freedom had declined for the 17th consecutive year, but there are signs the tide is turning, said the monitoring group’s deputy director for policy and advocacy, Katie LaRoque, explaining that while 35 countries scores declined in Freedom House’s annual rankings, 34 countries improved.

According to Pew Research, concern has been growing in recent years about the future of democracy, and there is considerable dissatisfaction in many countries with how democracies are practically being run. However public support for democratic ideals remains strong, and by one measure, global democracy is at or near a modern-day high.

In Pew statistics, as of the end of 2017, 96 out of 167 countries with populations of at least 500,000 (57%) were democracies of some kind, and only 21 (13%) were autocracies. Nearly four dozen other countries – 46, or 28% – exhibited elements of both democracy and autocracy. Broadly speaking, the share of democracies among the world’s governments has been on an upward trend since the mid-1970s, and now sits just shy of its post-World War II record (58% in 2016).

Today, the existing communist states in the world are in China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and North Korea (DPRK).

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