The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) is an international, non-profit organization founded in 1987. Based in Arlington, Virginia, the organization provides assistance and support for elections and electoral stakeholders in new and emerging democracies. Since 1987, IFES has worked in 145 countries and currently has programs in more than 50 countries throughout Asia-Pacific, Africa, Eurasia, the Middle East and North Africa, and the Americas. IFES is a non-governmental organization, registered as a 501(c)(3) in the United States. According to IFES, they work to advance good governance and democratic rights by providing technical assistance to election officials, collaborating with civil society and public institutions to increase participation in the political process, and applying field-based research to improve the electoral cycle and develop trusted electoral bodies. IFES is supervised by a Board of Directors made up of Democrat and Republican politicians and members of the international community. Since 2018, the president of IFES is Anthony Banbury, having replaced Bill Sweeney. History IFES was founded by F. Clifton White on September 19, 1987, as a response to Ronald Reagan's 1982 Westminster speech, in which he stressed the importance of promoting democracy. IFES was established along with other United States federal-government-funded organizations claiming to focus on democracy promotion, including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), and the International Republican Institute (IRI), all established in 1983. Major events In 1989, IFES began its first project, which focused on the Paraguayan general elections of that year. By 1990, IFES had established its first field office in Haiti. In 1991, IFES convened a conference that established the Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials (ACEEEO), its first cooperative agreement with USAID, and opened a new Resource Center. In 1995, IFES embarked on a joint venture with International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs to create the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS). This is a cooperative agreement supervised by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Democracy and Governance, which is the principal contractor for the Office of Democracy and Government's elections and political processes program which provides technical assistance and support to USAID missions worldwide. In 1995, IFES also accomplished its first surveys in Russia and Ukraine. The first IFES-created non-government organization, CENTRAS, also became private at this time as a continuation of the IFES's "Civic Voice"