Owen Fitzgerald Program News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The benefits of high levels of interpersonal trust, community engagement, government responsiveness and acceptance of all groups are almost too many to list. Democracy is more successful in societies with these attributes. To promote greater citizen engagement at the local level in Ecuador, NDI and local partners strengthened cooperation between local governments and civil society to address the needs and rights of marginalized groups and promote stronger and more interconnected communities in the country.

Despite recent advances for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex + (LGBTQI+) rights in Ecuador, such as the Constitutional Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in 2019, progress remains to be made on the acceptance and inclusion of LGBTQI+ people in politics, including continued hostility from public officials, a lack of rights protections on the local level and political parties that lack internal structures designed to take LGBTQI+ voices into account.