Belarus’s 2020 presidential election and the brutal state response to the subsequent protests have left most of the country’s citizens deprived of the political transformation that they so clearly demanded.
The state’s continued disregard for democratic processes and human rights stymies the country’s development and requires strategically directed international support to hold Belarus’s political actors to account.
The project uses locally gathered evidence, including polling, to bring the international policy community together with local and regional experts and representatives to monitor and discuss the most difficult issues facing the country. The poll results and data sets are published on Belaruspolls.org, a website run by the Center for New Ideas and Chatham House.
It offers recommendations to guide the international community’s policy response in support of political transformation, human rights, good governance, and democracy. The project places particular focus on the hardships faced by women and marginalised communities.
The Belarus Initiative is run in partnership with the Center for New Ideas and led by Ryhor Astapenia.
