David Masango
7 November 2007
South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is training a group of 25 election administrators from east and southern Africa.
The administrators from Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zanzibar, as well as representatives of three civil society organisations, will undergo a three-day course to improve the project management skills of participants in the area of election training.
The course is being conducted in partnership with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International Idea), with funding from the Australian Electoral Commission.
Idea Africa and Middle East regional director Abdalla Hamdok explained in a statement this week that elections were the largest and most extensive logistical exercise involving almost the entire adult population of a nation.
"Competent, confident and well trained election administrators are the backbone of the electoral process and good training programmes are essential to achieve this," he said. "The organisation of training programmes requires a specific set of project management skills which is what this course is designed to build."
Building democracy
According to Idea, the course is based on a capacity-building curriculum known as the Bridge Project (Building resources in democracy, governance and elections), which was specifically designed to improve the skills knowledge and confidence of election administrators and is widely recognised as the most comprehensive training curriculum of its kind in the world.
It covers topics such as electoral systems, public outreach, registration of voters, and electoral observers and has been run in 23 countries across the globe, including ten in Africa with more that 2 000 participants.
Idea adds that Bridge is aimed at ensuring sustainability in professional development training in the field of elections by building the necessary project management skills of individual electoral commissions, so that they can organise and implement Bridge courses for their own national training programmes.
IEC chairperson Brigalia Bam said that elections were an integral part of any democracy and that her organisation was very happy to be part of a programme that ensured well-trained election administrators.
"The Bridge course is an important and relevant instrument that will ensure that we build the necessary expertise in this field and also bring in new and innovative ideas on the management of elections," she said.
Twenty-two election administrators from the same region previously attended a "Train the Trainer" course, which is also based on Bridge, in South Africa in May this year.
Source: BuaNews
