As Indonesia enters now a contentious election period consisting of regional elections in June 2018 and national elections in April 2019, it is important that election stakeholders are brought together to discuss and coordinate efforts to tackle these issues. On January 11, IFES held a roundtable on countering hate speech and community incitement in elections in Jakarta.
Ahead of Sri Lanka's February 2018 local government election, IFES carried out a women’s leadership program, She Leads SL, that equipped 458 Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim women with practical campaign skills including fundraising, networking and coalition building, campaign messaging, social media use, public speaking, and development of personal campaign action plans. As a result of the She Leads SL training, nearly 43 percent of alumnae participated as candidates in the 2018 local government elections, utilizing skills gained from the training to elevate their campaigns.