International IDEA has been suffered by serious silo mentality for many years perhaps since the establishment of the organization in 1995, not well communicating or collaborating each other between Programmes (i.e. HQ, several Regional Programme offices and country offices). As there are many democracy-support competitors around the glove (e.g. giant UNDP, OSCE, IFES, NDI, IRI, NIMD, Westminster Foundation, etc.) now, IDEA is hardly able to provide any niche or value-added proposition to the challenging world, compared with these competitors. In addition, IDEA’s programmes, mostly comparative knowledge publications, are not cost-effective because of very high staff salary and management costs. You will have serious doubts about how effectively IDEA can spend valuable taxpayers’ money.
All important decisions are made by senior management behind the closed door without any proper consultation with colleagues who have expertise in specific topics. IDEA lacks transparency, integrity and honesty; surprisingly lacks democratic decision-making processes though the organization cynically wants to pursue democracy around the world. The authoritarian management style accompanied with serious cronyism and nepotism by the Secretary-General and his surroundings is unbearable and a real shame.
