James Gomez has over 10 years of field and policy experience with international democracy assistance institutions. He began his connection to democracy assistance organizations with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) in 1997 by attending its conferences in Germany and undertaking several consultancy projects. He joined the Foundation’s Regional office in Singapore soon after where he was appointed Research and Project Coordinator. In May 2001, James was posted as the Foundation’s Regional Research and Communications Manager to Bangkok, Thailand.

His work with the Foundation took him to Burma, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. Work in these countries focused on democracy, political party development, human rights and media freedoms. He worked closely with FNF partner organizations such as the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism and the Economic Freedom Network Asia to name a few.

In undertaking this work in the field, James received wide exposure to the full range of political issues. His substantive field experience in the Asian region included an understanding of political situation, as well as its culture, history and traditions. This allowed him to choose appropriate approaches and techniques to address highly sensitive and complex issues and problems. He can exercise independent judgment and discretion in advising on and handling major political issues and problems.

During the course of his work he co-edited FNF publications entitled:

• Tomorrow’s Leaders: Bridging Asia and Europe (co-ed). Conference Report of the First Asia-Europe Foundation Young Parliamentarians Meeting, 13-16 November 1998, Cebu, Philippines;
• Political Dimensions of the Asian Crisis (2000); Democratic Transitions in Asia (2001) and September 11 and Political Freedom: Asian Perspectives (2002);
• Asian Cyberactivism: Freedom of Expression & Media Censorship (2004);
• An Occasional Paper entitled Between Freedom and Censorship: Asian Political Parties in Cyberspace (2005) that was published by the Liberal Institute.

These publications were targeted at policy makers and opinion leaders, hence James developed the ability to articulate and provide sound policy and advice to people at all levels and from different cultural backgrounds. Duties included preparing draft background papers, briefing notes and talking points, delivering presentations, writing and editing policy papers as well as participating in the planning of strategies and development of policy advice.

In 2006 he left the German Foundation to join the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) in Stockholm, Sweden as Programme Officer in the Political Parties Programme.  He is assigned to the task of initiating global policy papers and research on Asia, Middle-East, Africa and Latin America pertaining to issues relating to political parties.

At IDEA he specializes in the issue of internal democracy and assists political parties globally in their capacity building. He is also the officer in charge for political party issues in the Middle-East and South Asia. He is a member of IDEA’s Communications Task Force which contributes to the formulation of the institutes' communications and web strategies.

Collectively, James’ work in democracy assistance organizations evolves around programme design, events planning and management, budgeting and coordination of projects with HQ and field offices. As part of his work he also does monitoring and implementation of the work plan and conducts project evaluations. He has acquired managerial skills and had various opportunities to lead teams and task forces that include finance, administrative, communications, programme staff and a rotating number of interns. He works in multicultural environments that include staff from all over the world.

Elements of his work involve budget planning as well as fund raising. James is familiar with the funding cycles of donors and is an experienced proposal writer. And has special experience with applications for funds to the European Union.

Apart from the project management aspects of work, James frequently makes presentations at conferences and workshops around themes of democracy, human rights and political parties. He is experienced in organising and developing capacity building training workshops, including organizing activities for women, ethnic minorities and youth. 

Over the course of his work he has developed relationships with various democracy assistance organizations world-wide and the major personalities and political parties in the Asian region and beyond.Some of the organizations that specifically work with political parties include: the National Democratic Institute (NDI), International Republican Institute (IRI), Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia (ARDA), Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD), International Federation of Election Systems (IFES) , Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and Liberal International (LI) just to name a few.