OSI Brochure: A Record of Achievement

The Open Society Institute (OSI) works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. Open societies are characterized by:

• the rule of law;
• respect for human rights, minorities, and a diversity of opinions;
• democratically elected governments;
• market economies in which business and government are separate; and
• a civil society that helps keep government power in check.

To achieve its mission, OSI seeks to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI builds alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. OSI places a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of marginalized people and communities.

Investor and philanthropist George Soros in 1993 created OSI as a private operating and grantmaking foundation to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Those foundations were established, starting in 1984, to help countries make the transition from communism. OSI has expanded the activities of the Soros foundations network to encompass the United States and more than 60 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Each Soros foundation relies on the expertise of boards composed of eminent citizens who determine individual agendas based on local priorities.

• OSI and the Soros foundations have given away more than $5 billion to build open, democratic societies.
• OSI spent $408 million in 2004, including expenditures of over $96 million by the Soros foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, $38 million by the foundations in Africa, and $82 million in the United States.
• OSI has spent a total of $742 million in the United States in the past decade to strengthen human rights, access to justice, education, professionalism in law and medicine, palliative care, and to ensure the inclusion of everyone in the democratic process.

The Open Society Institute’s initiatives are as far-reaching as its mission. The following lists selected activities and achievements.

Freedom and Democracy

• To champion freedom and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, OSI and the Soros foundations since before the fall of communism have worked to support progressive economic, social, and legal reforms. This work has helped transform the region and contributed to the successful efforts of eight countries to join the European Union in 2004.
• To promote peace and tolerance in the former Yugoslavia, OSI has spent over $300 million on programs that advance the rule of law, independent media, human rights, and democratic values.
• To support democratic development in South Africa, OSI has strengthened the institutions and practices of democracy with $93 million in funding for reconciliation, law reform, education, and media. OSI has also contributed to the building of hundreds of thousands of low-cost houses for the millions still living in apartheid-era shantytowns.
• To assist the Burmese people in their struggle for freedom, OSI has kept an international spotlight on the authoritarian rule of Burma’s military government and its repression of democracy. OSI has also provided education and job training for Burmese refugees and ethnic minority groups living near the country’s borders.
• To ensure free and fair elections, OSI supports nongovernmental organizations that work on voter education and registration, conduct exit polls, and monitor elections to expose fraud and corruption.

Human Rights

• To protect the lives of innocent civilians fleeing armed conflict and economic deprivation, OSI for over a decade has supported humanitarian efforts and legal initiatives to help the displaced. An early proponent of the International Criminal Court, OSI has consistently advocated that states protect and respect the people under their jurisdiction.
• To help the victims of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, OSI provided tens of millions of dollars for humanitarian aid and relief efforts. In Sarajevo, construction crews braved sniper fire and artillery shells to restore drinking water for civilians and return electricity to the city’s hospitals. OSI also donated money for seeds so the people of Sarajevo could grow food.
• To combat the unfair treatment of legal immigrants in the United States, OSI has spent more than $60 million on advocacy and assistance programs since 1997.
• To expose trafficking of women and girls for sexual slavery in Russia, OSI funded “Bought and Sold,” a groundbreaking video documenting how organized crime networks in Russia control a multimillion dollar trafficking and sexual slavery industry. The film helped galvanize international concern on this issue.
• To improve the lives and advance the human rights of the Roma, Europe’s largest and most marginalized ethnic minority, OSI has been a leading supporter of Roma rights advocacy organizations and initiatives. OSI and the World Bank supported and developed the Decade of Roma Inclusion, 2005–2015, an international effort to fight discrimination against Roma and improve their living conditions through comprehensive reform across Central and South Eastern Europe.
• To ensure that all Americans have access to justice and receive equal protection under the law, OSI has spent more than $165 million on justice projects, including efforts to improve legal aid services, advocate for sentencing and incarceration reforms, and combat racial profiling.

Education

• To help children succeed in school and involve parents in their education, OSI has spent more than $110 million to establish and expand its early childhood development program in 30 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The program, which emphasizes child-centered teaching, has trained over 220,000 early childhood educators, serving over 1 million children and their families.
• To supplement Haiti’s overburdened and ineffective school system, OSI established early childhood education programs and supported over 50 community libraries. Haiti has no public libraries and an illiteracy rate of over 65 percent.
• To fund advanced studies as well as promote democratic values, OSI has given hundreds of millions of dollars in fellowships and scholarships. The scholarships, some with support from USAID and the U.S. Department of State, empower individuals around the world to improve the social, political, and intellectual environments of their home communities.
• To help train a new generation of political and economic leaders, George Soros established Central European University in 1991 as a center of research and policy analysis that promotes the principles of open, democratic societies. CEU, with an endowment of $500 million contributed by Soros separate from OSI, has educated well over 5,000 students, mostly on full scholarships.
• To teach young people critical thinking and tolerance for opposing views, OSI, starting in Central and Eastern Europe, has funded hundreds of student debate programs, involving more than 100,000 secondary students, 30,000 university students, and 20,000 teachers in 40 countries, including states in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
• To educate future civic leaders, OSI in 2005 provided $5 million, with USAID contributing $10 million, for an endowment to the American University–Central Asia, a liberal arts institution in Kyrgyzstan with more than 1,100 students from 25 countries. TO HELP inner city students in the United States benefit from learning debate, OSI has spent nearly $12 million on high school debate programs in 15 cities. Debaters build leadership skills, improve grades, and are more likely to continue to college.
• To improve opportunities for New York City youth, OSI spent $125 million to establish The After-School Corporation, the largest provider of after-school programs in the city. After-school programs enrich children’s experience in school and help create safe communities.
• To rehabilitate education in Albania, OSI began by rebuilding neglected and deteriorating schools. When an economic crisis caused violent social unrest, including the looting of schools, the 89 schools constructed or repaired by OSI with community participation escaped damage as parents rallied to protect them.
• To tackle the most difficult urban social problems, OSI has been working in Baltimore, Maryland, spending some $50 million since 1998 on projects that helped boost reading and math test scores for public school students, secure funding for after-school programs for 14,000 students, double the number of people receiving drug treatment, and cut fatal overdoses to their lowest level in five years.

Public Health and Access to Care

• To fight tuberculosis, particularly multidrug resistant tuberculosis, OSI has emerged as a leader in supporting programs that strengthen policies and mobilize additional resources. OSI also funds civil society monitoring and advocacy for more effective TB and HIV/AIDS controls in nearly a dozen high-impact countries.
• To improve public health in Russia, OSI spent nearly $25 million on issues ranging from TB, to HIV/AIDS, to mental disability advocacy, to support for schools of public health. OSI pioneered a project to extend the successful multi-drug resistant TB treatment model to Russia’s prison populations.
• To curb the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases among injecting drug users, OSI has promoted human rights and health services, leading the way in support for needle exchange, substitution therapy, and demand reduction.
• To secure the rights of the mentally disabled, OSI has become the leading international supporter of programs for their benefit, including efforts to promote educational and employment opportunities.
• To transform end-of-life care in the United States, OSI spent $45 million on programs designed to help doctors more effectively care for patients dying with chronic pain. To spread palliative care to other countries, OSI has supported programs in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and South Africa, where each week thousands are dying of AIDS.

Transparency and Access to Information

• To curb corruption and ensure that citizens benefit from the natural wealth of their countries, OSI is committed to bringing about revenue and budget transparency in resourcerich countries. OSI monitors oil and other revenues in Iraq, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and other countries, and supports international efforts calling for the disclosure of payments that oil, gas, and mining companies make to governments.
• To undermine government censorship in communist Hungary in 1984, George Soros shipped photocopiers to civil society organizations in Budapest. Since then, OSI has supported independent media during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, community radio in Africa, and Internet development throughout the world as part of its larger mission to increase access to information.
• To strengthen open society values in Russia, OSI spent nearly $1 billion, much of it on information and education programs. OSI brought Internet service to rural areas, filled the shelves of local libraries with new titles, funded the production of new textbooks, and trained teachers and university professors.
• To sustain Russian science and to prevent Russian scientists from emigrating after the collapse of communism, OSI paid approximately $100 million to supplement their salaries. The stipends prevented thousands of scientists from leaving the country and selling their expertise, including their possession of nuclear secrets, to the highest bidders.

OSI continues to advocate for policy reforms that promote open society. In South Eastern Europe, for example, OSI is taking the lead in organizing civil society cooperation on regional issues such as EU integration, education, labor migration, minority rights, and media. OSI is also bringing together activists from Eastern Europe with their counterparts in Southeast Asia to share experiences and lessons learned in the transition to democracy.

In the United States, OSI is focused on promoting more constructive global engagement and fostering new thinking and effective advocacy about equality, justice, and opportunity.

The Open Society Institute believes in working with governments and civil society to promote the development of open societies within countries and to strengthen international law and institutions to advance open society principles around the world.