ECES is an independent, non partisan neutral and not for profit Foundation headquartered in Brussels with a global remit. ECES was established at the end of 2010 by the initiative of Fabio Bargiacchi, till today serving as its Executive Director. ECES has implemented activities already in more than 50 countries, mainly, but not only, in Africa and Middle East, and primarily with funding from the EU and EU Member states.
ECES promotes electoral and democratic strengthening through the provision of advisory services, operational support via innovative project and financial management methodologies. In our activities we mainsteam capacity and leadership development using peer exchanges and comparative experiences to promote dialogue and the prevention and mitigation of electoral conflicts.
ECES has crafted and copyrighted its strategy called "A European Response to Electoral Cycle Support - EURECS", which is implemented via other specific methodologies and tools that makes a total of 20 copyrights. EURECS is an innovative delivery mechanism to implement electoral and democracy assistance activities that are consistent primarily with European values and EU policies targeting the facilitation of cooperation on electoral matters between the EU, the EU member states and their partner countries.
ECES has obtained the Tcertification and ISO 9001 certifications for our financial transparency and for our quality management system. We implement our activities via a truly international, multicultural and multilingual personnel. With individuals with at least 60 different nationalities who can work in at least 30 languages we are as diverse as the electoral stakeholders we cooperate with worldwide.
This native insight and our innovator spirit make us better electoral assistance implementor and helped us foster strong relationships also because we can communicate and work in many languages and therefore understand many cultures.
ECES implemented, with other partners, on behalf of the EU the ERMES project, called the European Resource for Mediation Support, which was a strategic tool for the EU’s role in mediation and dialogue. ECES provided the key expertise, and the office of the project was situated within our HQ.
ECES is also a proud member of both the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) network and the Team Europe Democracy (TED) Initiative, reflecting its commitment to contributing to broader European and international efforts in the fields of peacebuilding, conflict prevention, democratic governance, and democratic resilience. EPLO is the leading independent European platform bringing together more than 50 civil society organizations, NGO networks, and think tanks working on peacebuilding, mediation, dialogue facilitation, and crisis prevention, while the TED Initiative represents a global European Union framework aimed at strengthening cooperation and synergies among EU institutions, EU Member States, implementing partners, not-for-profit foundations such as ECES, civil society organizations, academia, and other democracy-support actors worldwide. Within these frameworks, ECES contributes its operational expertise in electoral assistance, peer learning, capacity development, and democratic governance support developed through activities implemented across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and other partner regions.
