Biden begins democracy conference with USD690M program commitment

(MENAFN) Washington, D.C. With a commitment to spend $690 million supporting democratic initiatives throughout the world, President Joe Biden began the second Summit for Democracy.

According to a senior administration source, the Biden administration intends to focus the two-day conference on making "technology work for and not against democracy." A total of 120 world leaders have been invited to take part.

Biden regularly refers to the United States and its allies as being at a crucial period where democracies must show they can outperform autocracies. The summits, which Biden vowed to hold as a Democratic contender for president in 2020, have grown to be a crucial part of his administration's efforts to forge stronger alliances and prod authoritarian states toward at least moderate reforms.

At the summit's start, Biden and Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, released a joint statement, “Strengthening transparent, accountable governance rooted in the consent of the governed is a fundamental imperative of our time.”

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