US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday additional funding to support democracy around the world. At the “Summit for Democracy” held at the initiative of the head of state, Biden said that democratic states are “not weakening, but getting stronger” in their struggle with authoritarianism.
According to the Reuters agency, the American leader announced plans to allocate 690 million dollars to combat corruption, hold fair and free elections, and promote technologies that support democratic governments.
Leaders of 121 countries were invited to the event. According to Freedom House, not all of them can be called democratic. The summit is being held mostly online. The previous one was organized in 2021.
A number of non-governmental organizations, such as Freedom House or the Swedish V-Dem organization, believe that authoritarianism, on the contrary, is spreading globally, and the number of democratic states is decreasing.
Speaking at the summit, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres noted that there is pressure on mass media and human rights defenders in a number of countries.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country, which is resisting Russia, is at the forefront of the fight for democracy, and repeated his call to provide weapons to Kyiv.
“Democracy needs victory now and not any other time. Victory is needed right now, not later,” urged Zelensky in an online speech
Moscow and Beijing were not invited to the event. They criticized holding the summit as hypocrisy.