4th Edition of the Effective Electoral Assistance Course in Milan
From the 12 to the 16 of November 2012, ECES and the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), in collaboration with the Osservatorio di Pavia, an institute specialised in media analysis, delivered the 4th edition of the ISPI Advanced Diploma on Effective Electoral Support.
The Advanced Diploma used the ISPI Paper on Effectiveness and Sustainability of Electoral Assistance (2011), prepared by the main ECES´ experts and trainers, as a key reference tool. The course showed how the new guiding principles in effective electoral assistance can be translated into a more holistic and pragmatic approach and operational responses. Thus these solutions can be implemented in order to make electoral assistance more effective, sustainable and more consistent with national objectives in countries receiving such assistance as well as in line with the overall objectives of regional and international donors contributing to the assistance.
During the five-day training, the AD in Electoral Support developed the following issues:
- Historical background of electoral assistance and election observation;
- The policy and strategic frameworks of the main actors (European Union and the United Nations in primis) in the field of electoral assistance and election observation;
- The international commitments on democratic elections and how they are applied in practice;
- The main stakeholders in electoral processes and their role;
- The organization of election administration;
- The use of the electoral cycle approach can be used during the formulation, implementation and evaluation of projects;
- The integration of new technologies into the electoral assistance programming and electoral management;
- The relation between elections, conflict and violence;
- The formal and informal electoral dispute resolutions;
- What Leadership and Conflict Management skills the Electoral stakeholders need to possess to conduct effective electoral assistance activities and prevent election-related violence;
- The best approach for the preparation of electoral assistance projects;
- The main challenges linked to strategic and operational planning, procurement, logistics and security for the successful implementation of an electoral process.
The 2012 edition of the EEA was designed on the basis of the BRIDGE and LEAD methodology, which uses interactive and participatory adult education techniques adapted to electoral administration and electoral assistance.
25 participants from various countries including: Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Moldova, Italy, Georgia, Venezuela, Lebanon, Macedonia, Brazil and Czech Republic attended the course.
