News and Updates
Press Release

Advocating for Democracy

Published

In the past few months IFES has revamped and expanded its communications and advocacy efforts and added staff to its outreach department. In the fall Jamie Dettmer, an international journalist and a communications counsel, was appointed as director of communications and advocacy. Shortly before Christmas, Laura Osio, formerly a media manager at the Washington DC-based think tank, the Cato Institute, joined IFES as its press officer. John Lawrence joined in November as manager of congressional affairs.

Dettmer brings more than 20 years of experience in journalism and in media and communications strategy. Prior to IFES, Dettmer was a senior consultant at the United Nations and before then he was director of media relations at the Cato Institute. Dettmer has served on the staffs of The Times of London, Sunday Telegraph, the Bonnier Media Group, the Scotsman and the Washington Times Corp. and he has been a columnist for several UK and European newspapers. He was an associate producer on the BBC’s award-winning documentary series The Spying Game.

In addition, he's been a regular guest on television news and current affairs shows, covered several wars during his career and ran newspaper bureaus in the Middle East, Russia, Europe and the United States. He is a graduate of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University.

“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work at IFES, whose work in the Middle East and Africa I observed as a journalist,” said Dettmer. “As a journalist who reported from countries engulfed by conflict and also covered countries trying to emerge from the horror and bleakness of wars and tyranny, I know how important democracy support and election-assistance efforts are – I know how they can make the difference. I intend to help IFES tell its story and also to tell the story of democracy, and I want to do that by using different media platforms and by more fully embracing the digital and the online.”

Osio will be in charge of media relations and assist in generating Op-ed ideas and placing Op-eds in major publications. She will also be in charge of the IFES newsletter.

As part of a growing Communications & Advocacy office, IFES brought on its first Congressional Affairs Manager in November 2008. John D. Lawrence, who has been involved in advocacy and international policy for 20 years, sees his work as involving IFES as a whole, seeking to integrate the Hill into IFES' work not only in Washington, but throughout the field offices as well.

IFES' goal is to increase understanding on Capitol Hill among members and staff of what IFES does and how important democracy support generally is in advancing democracies worldwide.

With a new Administration and a new Congress both starting in January, 2009 will be a very busy year. We have already been to the Hill numerous times, particularly as Chiefs of Party come to Washington.

A good example of our new Hill outreach efforts is the recent visit of our Azerbaijan COP, Dan Blessington. Despite a broken foot (sustained as part of his IFES work in the region), he spent a long afternoon on the Hill in early January. He discussed Azerbaijan and the Caucasus region with staff from the Helsinki Commission, the House Democracy Assistance Commission, as well as individual members of the Azerbaijan Caucus. He was accompanied on the Hill by Anthony Bowyer, Program Manager for the Caucasus region, who had most recently testified on Turkmenistan to the Helsinki Commission (see picture), and Gavin Weise newly arrived deputy director for Europe and Asia.