The National Democratic Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide by promoting citizen participation, openness and accountability in government. We started our work on Roma in 2003 by conducting assessment missions, funded by the Open Society Institute (OSI), to Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia to determine how Roma could more effectively use the political process to address longstanding issues of social and economic exclusion. Over the past five years, using the findings and recommendations, NDI, funded primarily by the National Endowment for Democracy and OSI, has conducted programs throughout the region to increase Romani capacities to engage in political and civic life. The program has been guided by the principle that skilled Romani activists can more effectively participate in political parties, government and civil society; compete for elected office; and influence policy. The initiative has focused on Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia. This year, NDI conducted an assessment on the barriers to political participation of Roma in Romania, and the report that was presented in Bucharest, in Washington DC, Brussels, and now here, in Geneva. There was no specific motivation why the assessment was conducted in Romania other than by numbers, Romania having the largest population of Roma. Official number is around 500,000, but many estimates are numbering the Roma between 1 and 2,5 million. NDI examined the legal frameworks supporting minority rights and equal access; governing structures that provide services to and represent Roma communities; political parties as the bodies that aggregate citizen priorities and compete for office; civil society in their role as both government watchdogs and partners; and the trends in public opinion toward and among Roma.