Resilience Lab Turns One

In the fall of 2024, IFES launched our Democratic Resilience Lab, a hub for innovation and collaboration. The Lab has a two-fold agenda to find new ways to 1) counter democratic backsliding and 2) to disrupt autocratic agendas. 

The global trends animating the Lab's launch only intensified in 2025: around the world, democracies are suffering setbacks and opportunities for democratic “bounce backs” are few. The year also brought with it tremendous retrenchment in bilateral government foreign assistance budgets, leaving the community of democracy supporters with far fewer resources to advance their efforts.   

IFES defines “democratic resilience” as the ability to maintain democratic governance functions and principles, despite attempts by illiberal actors to damage or diminish the accountability mechanisms core to democracy. Democratic resilience is a long-term strategic investment with many stakeholders. It requires collaboration from passionate on-the-ground advocates, technical experts, like-minded bilateral and multilateral donors, and openness-minded governments. In its first year, the Lab has focused on building partnerships with peer organizations and academic centers, such as a recent report published in collaboration with International IDEA and the Global Democracy Coalition assessing the impacts of aid reductions on democracy organizations globally.

Even in a time of great resource constraints, democratic resilience still merits thoughtful, evidence-informed investment. And while every investment comes with risk, we can learn from our experiences by marshalling data of past impact. This requires a critical lens to identify the right comparisons – what are the main challenges facing a particular democracy, the end goal(s) of support, and the tools at our disposal? Since its launch, the Lab has developed and deployed new analytical tools to draw these lessons: 

• a Rapid Democracy Trends Assessment that enables us to track and contextualize anti-democratic risks in specific countries across time; 
• a Resilience Framework Activity that assesses the most pressing challenges in a country on the verge of a backslide; and 
• a Democratic Resilience Tracker, which enables our teams to detect subtle shifts in the democratic atmosphere on an ongoing basis. 

Through institutional relationships and ongoing research and tool development, the Democratic Resilience Lab offers practical ways to tackle these important questions. The Lab’s mission has never been more imperative. We invite you to meet our experts, dive into our two framework papers, and watch – or rewatch – our October 18, 2024, launch event featuring a panel of distinguished guests from across the transatlantic democracy support community.