Authors: Domenico Tuccinardi, Paul Guerin, Fabio Bargiacchi, Linda Maguire

Seven years ago, the first official recognition of elections as a “process” rather than an “event” was not followed by an immediate shift in approach by electoral assistance providers and development agencies. The evolution from event-driven support to process and demand-driven support in electoral assistance programs has proved to be a long one, for a number of associated factors. This “paradigm shift” in approach has now taken root.  However, there is still considerable work to be done before this evolution can be completed.

This “Focus On…” argues that the work that still needs to be done is essentially capacity building, both at the development agency and partner country level. The initiatives implemented over the last three years in the field of electoral assistance by the European Commission, the United Nations Development Programme and International IDEA, and the recent establishment of the EC-UNDP “Joint Task Force on Effective Electoral Assistance” are analysed in this context. This represents a first assessment of the way in which electoral assistance is delivered on the ground, and the effect that these new ideas are having in shaping other development agencies’ priorities in this field. Cost-effective knowledge services and capacity building tools like the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network and BRIDGE are playing an increasingly decisive role in making electoral assistance more effective.

This "Focus On ... Effective Electoral Assistance" is structured as follows:

• Introduction

• Brief History of Electoral Assistance - Three leading actors
• The hard lessons of the 1990s
• The Wake-Up Call of the New Millennium
  
• Facing Electoral Realities: Too Much Assistance, Too Late
• The Electoral Cycle Approach
• Setting Up an Effective Electoral Assistance Project: From Identification to Evaluation
• Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Development
• Existing Knowledge and Capacity Building Services
  
• Embracing technology
• The Way Forward
  

• Conclusions

• Links Relevant to Effective Electoral Assistance