The Rumi Forum presented “The Thorny Road of Democracy: Never has been easy to go forward” with Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy.
Mr. Carl Gershman is the President of the National Endowment for Democracy. In addition to presiding over the Endowment’s grants program in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Latin America, he has overseen the creation of the quarterly Journal of Democracy, International Forum for Democratic Studies, and the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program. He also took the lead in launching in New Delhi in 1999 the World Movement for Democracy, which is a global network of democracy practitioners and scholars. Prior to assuming the position with the Endowment, Mr. Gershman was Senior Counselor to the United States Representative to the United Nations. While at the U.S. Mission to the U.N., Mr. Gershman also served as lead consultant to the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, and helped draft the final report. Prior to his assignment at the United States Mission to the United Nations, Mr. Gershman was a Resident Scholar at Freedom House and Executive Director of Social Democrats, USA. Mr. Gershman has lectured extensively and written articles and reviews on foreign policy issues. He is the co-editor of Israel, the Arabs and the Middle East (Bantam, 1972) and the author of The Foreign Policy of the American Labor (Sage, 1975). He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Council on Foreign Relations. He received The Order of the Knight’s Cross, Government of Poland; President’s Medal, George Washington University; The Distinguished Person for Advancing Democracy in China, Chinese Education Democracy Foundation; International Campaign for Tibet’s 2005 Light of the Truth Award and Romania’s National Order of “faithful service.” Mr. Gershman received his B.A. degree from Yale University in 1965 and M.Ed. from Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1968.