The center is located in a shared building adjacent to the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum on 37 acres (150,000 m2) of parkland, on the site of the razed neighborhood of Copenhill, two miles (3 km) from downtown Atlanta, Georgia.
[3] The center has projects across 80 countries[4] including election monitoring, democratic institution-building, conflict mediation, and human rights advocacy.
[5] In 2007, he wrote an autobiography entitled Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope, which chronicles the first 25 years of The Carter Center.
[7] In 1993, John Hardman was appointed executive director, and during the 1990s the center received several multimillion-dollar donations to fight Guinea worm disease and to prevent blindness.
[25] Carter Center observers analyze election laws, assess voter education and registration processes, and evaluate fairness in campaigns.
[citation needed] The Carter Center sends observers only when invited by a country's electoral authorities and welcomed by the major political parties.
Electoral Assistance Division and the National Democratic Institute – in building consensus on a common set of international principles for election observation.
[33] On November 13, 2020, the center announced that it would monitor the hand recount in Georgia to "help bolster transparency and confidence in election results.
[34][35] The Carter Center supports the growth of democratic institutions to ensure that there is a respect for rule of law and human rights, that government decisions are open and transparent, and that everyone can have adequate resources to compete fairly for public office.
[37] The Carter Center also promotes the dissemination to emerging democracies and regional organizations of models, lessons, and best practices for democratic governance.
[citation needed] The center and President Carter are strong supporters of the U.N. Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court.
[citation needed] Recent examples include: Since 1988, the Chinese government has authorized direct village elections to help maintain social and political order in the context of rapid economic reforms.
Health programs seek to provide people with the information and access to services they need to treat their illnesses and take steps to prevent future spread of disease.
The results of this disparity are root causes of most of the world's unresolved problems, including starvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict and unnecessary illnesses that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS.
In 2023, there were 14 reported cases of Guinea worm disease, which remained endemic in five countries: Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, and South Sudan.
[56] Within affected countries, the center reinforces existing disease eradication programs by providing technical and financial assistance, as well as logistics and tools, such as donated filter cloth material, larvicide, and medical kits.
The group has reviewed more than 100 infectious diseases and identified six as potentially eradicable – dracunculiasis, poliomyelitis, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis, and cysticercosis.
[58] Since 1996, the center has been a leader in the fight against onchocerciasis, commonly known as river blindness – a parasitic disease transmitted by the bites of black flies.
[61] The center has helped to distribute more than 500 million doses of Mectizan (ivermectin)[62] – a drug donated by Merck & Co., Inc., that treats and prevents river blindness.
[64] The Center follows the World Health Organization's four-pronged approach – called the SAFE strategy – to fight trachoma in six African countries.
[69] The Carter Center believes in building networks of village-based health care workers to treat people for various diseases at the same time.
[citation needed] In partnership with the Sasakawa Africa Association, the center has worked since 1986 in 15 sub-Saharan African countries to teach 8–10 million small-scale farmers improved techniques that double or triple their crop yields.
[88] According to the center, which discloses all donations over $1,000, 2.5 percent of the total amount of contributions it has received since its founding in 1982 thru 2016 were from donors in Middle East Arab nations.