"For ... decades the founders of the CCD had envisioned a new kind of international community, one built largely on cooperation among democracies. Then, in June 2000, under U.S. leadership, representatives of over 100 nations met in Warsaw and, for the first time, agreed to work toward a global community increasingly based on democratic governance — the Community of Democracies (CD) — and issued a joint declaration defining democracy as a new strategic vision of the world. CCD seized the opportunity to support the implementation of that vision.

CCD has taken carefully-calculated, concrete steps to help create support for developing a concert of democracies.  Practical steps include helping to establish a UN Democracy Caucus, taking the lead in strengthening the Convening Group of the CD, linked to an effective nongovernmental Secretariat with six regional groupings, helping to organize an International Centre for Democratic Transition in Budapest -- a collaborative effort among democracies -- developing a European Network linking us and CD to our traditional European allies, and launching a website to encourage dialogue and action on issues emerging from the deliberations of the Community of Democracies... CCD takes pride in having played a leading role in articulating a Global Strategic Plan for Democracy Education... During the 2004 U.S. Presidential primary campaign, CCD took the lead in drafting a letter that was sent to all the presidential candidates, signed by representatives of several important NGOs, urging the candidates to make democracy promotion an important pillar of their foreign policy platforms. The candidates adopted many of the positions we advocated in that letter and  the Congress and White House subsequently implemented a number of others... Since its founding, CCD has also sought to elevate the profile of democracy at the United Nations.

More recently, CCD contributed in a variety of ways to the success of the 2005 Santiago Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies. We took the lead, in collaboration with American University and NGOs in Canada, Mexico and the U.S., in organizing a conference on “democracy deficits in North America,” part of a global assessment.

In the years ahead, CCD looks forward to continuing its leading role in the international democracy movement... We are proud of the contributions we have made to that democracy movement during our first five years, and we look forward to the future in helping shape an organization of democracies capable of united action, thereby strengthening the United Nations, articulating policy recommendations on key global issues, and assisting budding democracies on the difficult road to success."

CCD's Chairman, Ambassador Robert Hunter, in the CCD Five Year Report