---
title: Instituto Update
type: ngo
status: active
country: BR
website: https://www.institutoupdate.org.br
logo: /assets/org-logos/instituto-update.svg
logo_bg: dark
contact:
  checked: 2026-08-09
  email: contato@institutoupdate.org.br
  source: https://www.institutoupdate.org.br
summary: A Brazilian regional platform for political innovation and imagination in
  the Global South — connecting, strengthening, and producing knowledge to expand
  political participation, especially for Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQIA+ women.
concepts:
- democracy
- deliberative-democracy
- representative-democracy
location:
  latitude: -23.5505
  longitude: -46.6333
  name: São Paulo, Brazil
  precision: city
events:
- date: '2018-01-01'
  title: Founded in São Paulo as a regional platform for political innovation and
    imagination in the Global South
  url: https://www.institutoupdate.org.br/quem-somos/
  quote: O Instituto Update é uma organização liderada por mulheres que trabalha para
    transformar democracias incompletas em sistemas participativos que promovem o
    bem viver para todas as pessoas.
  proof_level: high
  url_checked: '2026-08-12'
  notable: true
activity:
  rss:
    checked: 2026-08-17
    date: 2026-08-09
    note: RSS feed active
    url: https://www.institutoupdate.org.br/feed
last_checked: '2026-08-09'
---

Instituto Update describes itself as "the missing infrastructure for the democracy we want" — a regional platform for political innovation and imagination in the Global South. Its focus is on expanding political participation for women who are underrepresented in conventional democratic institutions: Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQIA+ women, particularly in Latin America and increasingly in Africa.

The organisation runs three flagship programmes. Conecta Latinas is a rhizomatic network of Black, Indigenous, and LBTIQ+ women leaders across Latin America and the Caribbean (with a bridge to Africa), building collective power for shared visibility, collaboration, and political advocacy. Im.pulsa is an open learning platform and community for diverse women to enter and stay in institutional politics — a practical response to the representation gap. Mulheres em Diálogo builds bridges across ideological divides among women's groups to advance a shared pro-rights agenda through research and communication.

Instituto Update also produces mappings of political innovation initiatives across Latin America and Africa and publishes a newsletter on "the magical realism of Latin American politics." It is not a deliberative democracy organisation in the citizens'-assembly sense — it works at the level of who gets to be at the table in the first place, treating representation not as a settled fact but as a design problem.

## Links

- Website: [institutoupdate.org.br](https://www.institutoupdate.org.br)

## See also

- [Democracy](../concepts/democracy.md)
- [Representative Democracy](../concepts/representative-democracy.md)
- [Deliberative Democracy](../concepts/deliberative-democracy.md)