The UK's development arm (DFID) helps fund cement production in Ethiopia. Simon Davis for DFID/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by)
In the late 2000s a two-part consensus emerged between academics, policy makers and practitioners in the realm of democracy promotion. First, parliaments needed to be strengthened if the international community was serious about promoting democracy. Second, that we had done a pretty poor job of it so far. In perhaps one of the most egregious examples, one organisation conducted training for MPs in Timor-Leste in English and Portuguese. Many of the MPs, native Tetum speakers, spoke neither of these fluently. As a result most of the content was lost in translation.
