In February 2001, NIGD launched a process to identify practical projects to further the cause of democracy and social justice in the globalizing world. In the early phases of the project, NIGD organised a workshop in Helsinki in June, 2001 with the objective of generating discussion on reforms needed, and/or the creation of new institutional arrangements for global democratisation. The workshop drew from the background document Political Initiatives to Democratize Globalization . 

A second book, Democracy and Globalization: Promoting a North-South Dialogue was published in October, 2001 which highlighted the contributions and conclusions derived from the June Workshop. A third book, From a Global Market Place to Political Spaces: the North-South dialogue continues published in March 2002, presents the resulting evaluations and ranking of the most prominent initiatives discussed at the June Workshop. 

The project of North-South Dialogues has a sister project, called Global Democracy Initiatives

These first two phases were supported by the Finnish Foreign Ministry. 

NIGD is developing a third phase of this process. The third phase aims to strengthen the World Social Forum and global civil society in general through further research on democratising the WTO, developing debt arbitration mechanisms, and the practical, political work of discussing global democratisation.