Democracy Conference in Doha
http://www.icnrd6.com/

On October 29th, the four-day Sixth International Conference on New or Restored Democracies will be held in Doha, Qatar.  The New or Restored Democracies conferences brings together a group of government officials, members of parliament, and non-governmental officials from 192 countries to talk about “issues related to democracy, political reform, effective governance, the role of democracy in development and combating poverty, as well as freedom of speech.”  A declared goal of the Doha conference is to provide an “open forum for the discussion of difference opinions related to democracy.”  The upcoming Doha conference is the sixth of its kind since the group’s inception in 1988, with previous conferences being held in the Philippines, Nicaragua, Romania, Benin and Mongolia. 

The New or Restored Democracies was formed with the idea that “states gathering and working together assumed that, with mutual support, internal and external tendencies and forces endangering the processes of democratization could be overcome;” the United Nations joined the process in 1994 to help perpetuate this goal. 

The primary difference between the New or Restored Democracies and the Community of Democracies are the member-states that make up the organizations. The New or Restored Democracies is open to all countries, while the CD only accepts countries that adopt the standards embodied in the Warsaw Declaration, thus actively showing or making concrete steps toward their commitment to democracy.