By Ibrahima Amadou Niang

When the ferry arrives on Gorée Island, a stunning atmosphere of confusion and excitement confronts visitors in the remaining ghosts of the slave trade. There is no need to turn back, but rather face this history and its dark pages upon which new hopes of peace are written. As most visitors rush to the Slave House, others serenely move towards an old ochre building which the indigenous people take pride in calling the Gorée Institute.

With a mission to build open and self-reliant societies on the African continent, the Gorée Institute is the major link between the Pan-African intelligentsia and the rest of the world. From March 23 – 27, 2009, the Gorée Institute hosted the very first Building Resources in Democracy Governance and Elections (BRIDGE) training course in Senegal specifically for west African civil society Organisations (CSOs) working in electoral processes. This five-day training facilitated by both Theophilus Dowetin of IDEA and Ibrahima Amadou Niang of Gorée completed the following set of BRIDGE objectives:

• Train CSOs in various aspects of electoral management
• Introduce the BRIDGE curriculum and its pedagogy to West African CSOs 
• Position the Gorée Institute as a hub of excellence for both Administrations and Cost of Elections (ACE) and BRIDGE in West Africa

• Allow potential donors to familiarize themselves with BRIDGE

At the end of the BRIDGE training hosted by the Gorée Institute, all participants expressed a willingness to see this curriculum introduced to more west African civil society organisations. They believe BRIDGE is the most comprehensive and participant oriented course on elections they have attended and expressed a wish to see more Train the Facilitator courses organised for West African Civil Society Organisations. 

Since July 2007, Gorée Institute has been the ACE Regional Electoral Centre for West Africa and has been working closely with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) to implement the ACE project in the region. Thanks to this dynamic partnership, the Institute accomplished many necessary goals over the course of 20 months: 

• Take part in three election observation missions 
  - Zambia General Elections 2008 with EISA
  - Ghana General Elections 2008 1 & 2 with the African Union
• Participate in top regional meetings on elections
  - Convention of Democracies 2007 in Mali
  - Two 2008 Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) conferences 
  - Centre Africain de Formation et de Recherche Administratives pour le Développement (CAFRAD) meeting on Electoral Dispute Resolution 2008 in Tangier
• Have a staff member accredited as a bilingual full BRIDGE facilitator
• Get funds from the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDF) to implement a new project called Gorée Centre for Electoral Processes in which three (3) BRIDGE trainings are to be organised for West African Civil Society Organisations
• Disseminate electoral information and electoral materials in West Africa
• Promote ACE and BRIDGE in the region

Under the Gorée Centre for Electoral Processes project, the Gorée Institute launched the first network of West African Civil Society organisations working in electoral processes on January 30, 2009. About 15 west African civil society organisations agreed to establish a network to share best practices, develop capacities of their staff and increase the quality of civil society work in elections. This new network is called the West African Centre for Elections.

Along with complete synchronization between all electoral process projects currently managed by the Gorée Institute, ACE is the knowledge sharing channel through which best practices and information are disseminated. BRIDGE is the capacity development course used by the Gorée Centre for Electoral Processes project to build the capacities of west African civil society organisations working in electoral processes.

The steering committee is composed of seven member organisations out of which six have been already designated: West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF), the Gorée Institute, the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) in Ghana, ADG in Burkina Faso, La Rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l'Homme (RADDHO) and REDEMEC Cape Verde. This centre will soon be fully operational, basing the coordinating secretariat at the Gorée Institute.

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