The TED initiative (Team Europe Democracy) formerly known as Democracy Support Alliance, was launched in 2021 and is a global thematic Team Europe Initiative (TEI) to promote democracy and human rights worldwide. With 14 EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden) and Switzerland (as an observer), TED works to provide a unified, strategic European response to democracy support. The established TED Secretariat steers efforts for this worldwide objective.

The TED initiative has three main pillars: Research on democratic support best practices and policies, TED Network (global level) and providing expertise at the country level. The provision of support to selected partner countries is done through an experts' database. The experts assist EU Delegations and EU MS in operationalising TEIs and/or developing joint democracy actions, with the aim of strengthening the coordination and complementarity of European interventions for democracy support.

Whereas the research and analysis component is implemented by International IDEA (I-IDEA), Carnegie and European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), managing the TED Network, and providing expertise are responsibilities of the TED Secretariat. The TED Network is one key output of TED, designed to facilitate information exchange and strategic dialogue. It enhances cross-regional collaboration on democracy support and supports joint initiatives on the thematic priorities. Its modular structure enables the working groups to focus on specific themes or emerging needs.

The priority themes are: Accountability and Rule of Law, Political and Civic Participation, Media and Digital.

The working groups are led by EU MS, TED Network members and DG INTPA with support of the TED Secretariat. The Network is composed of EU institutions, EU MS and their implementing agencies, individual civil society organisations (CSOs) or networks, think tanks, universities, and research centres based in Europe and engaged in promoting democracy and human rights worldwide. Europe-based multilateral organisations engaged in democracy promotion can also join.