Fabio Bargiacchi

I work in the elections field since the beginning of the 90' and I have entered the international electoral support stage in 1997. In the period 1997-2004, I held several posts with the EU, the UN and the OSCE in countries such as West Bank/Gaza, Tanzania, Suriname, Indonesia and Zimbabwe working as Senior Election Operations Expert, Training Advisor and Coordinator of EU Election Observers. I also gained experience in managing Democratic Governance projects from working for the Delegation of the European Commission in Mozambique for 2 years. From Oct 2004 till Dec 2006 I worked as the Election Specialist for the European Commission HQ. From Jan 2007 till Dec 2010, I served as Coordinator of the Joint EC UNDP Task Force (JTF) and Senior Electoral Assistance Advisor for UNDP Brussels. I led in the establishment of the JTF and in the supervision of activities for the formulation and support to the implementation of all EC-UNDP electoral assistance projects, mostly in the context of the EC UNDP Partnership on Electoral Assistance that I contributed to create. Thus, from Oct 2004 till Dec 2010 I was involved in more than 70 UNDP projects funded by the EU for ca. 600 million of EURO and was at the forefront of the conception and delivery of all sort of the Joint EC UNDP IDEA electoral assistance training from Sep 2005 till Feb 2011. From Jan 2011 till Feb 2012 I worked as Chief Technical Advisor to the UNDP Project in Support of the Electoral cycles for the six Portuguese Speaking Countries in Africa and Timor Leste (funded by the EU). Since August 2011 I work as Executive Director and member of the Management Board of the European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES, www.eces.eu) that i have contributed to create. This is a non-profit private foundation headquartered in Brussels with a global scope that I led to the signature and implementation of more than 70 projects/contracts in 35 countries from Feb 2012 to nowadays. I was recently appointed in the board of Directors of the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD, www.epd.eu) and coordinator for the implementation of a joint strategy devised with the partners of EPD called "A European Response to Electoral Cycles Support". EPD is one the most important network of European civil and political society organisations working on democracy assistance. In this context, the joint experiences of the relevant members of the EPD provide the needed knowledge and expertise to implement a robust European response to electoral support activities mainly funded by the EU and its Member States. I am a BRIDGE ACCREDITING training-facilitator and I am one of the main creator of the training curriculum "Leadership and Conflict Management Skills for Electoral Stakeholders, LEAD" conceived together with the Centre for Creative Leadership. I have contributed to more than 50 electoral and democratization processes and in the last 10 years I coordinated, co-authored and contributed to a series of election-related publications and papers: “The potential of EU Funded electoral assistance to support the prevention of election related conflict and violence: Lessons from the Southern African Region” EURECS - A European Response to Electoral Cycle Support (2016) Using International Standards. Council of Europe Handbook for Domestic Election Observers (2013) Essential Consideration of Electronic Voting published by International IDEA (2011) ISPI Working Paper on the Electoral Cycle Approach: Effectiveness and Sustainability of Electoral Assistance (2011) EU and Peace building, Policy and Legal Aspects: EU Electoral Support: (2010) EC-UNDP Operational Paper on Procurement Aspects of Introducing ICTs in Electoral Processes: the specific case of biometric voter registration (2010) EC-UNDP Operational Guidelines. Implementation of Electoral Assistance Programmes and Projects (2006 and 2008) ACE Focus on Effective Electoral Assistance (2007) UNDP Electoral Assistance Implementation Guide (2007) EC Methodological Guide on Electoral Assistance (2006) I graduated in Political Science following studies at the University of Florence and at the "Universite Libre de Bruxelles" and holds a Master of Arts on Society, Science and Technology after studies at University of Roskilde (Denmark) and University of Oslo (Norway), www.esst.eu.

Thematic Areas of Expertise