WikipediaExtracts:National Endowment for Democracy
Extracted from Wikipedia --
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization in the United States founded in 1983 to advance democracy worldwide, by promoting political and economic institutions, such as political groups, trade unions, free markets, and business groups.
The NED was created as a bipartisan, private, non-profit corporation, and in turn acts as a grant-making foundation. It is funded primarily by an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress. In addition to its grants program, the NED also supports and houses the Journal of Democracy, the World Movement for Democracy, the International Forum for Democratic Studies, the Reagan–Fascell Fellowship Program, the Network of Democracy Research Institutes, and the Center for International Media Assistance.
Upon its founding, the NED assumed some former activities of the CIA. Political groups, activists, and some governments have said the NED has been an instrument of United States foreign policy helping to foster regime change.
