Jeffrey Smith, the executive director of Vanguard Africa, was one of the international observers closely monitoring the election in Gambia. Smith, who has been an advocate for human rights and democracy in Africa throughout his career, started Vanguard Africa “to shed a necessary spotlight on the need for free and fair processes and why they’re so important to democracy in the short and the long term, particularly in countries like the Gambia that don’t necessarily get the attention we think they deserve.”