The electoral cycle approach has gained almost unconditional support as identification and planning instrument both among electoral assistance providers and EMB officials from all over the world. Nevertheless, it presents a number of challenges and requires delicate advocacy and sensitisation work with the development agencies community. This work is directed at firmly shifting the emphasis from generic endorsement for long-term assistance policies to concrete commitments, especially for capacity development and institutional strengthening programmes that make the outcomes more sustainable and are aligned with the overall development objectives of the partner country.
The response to the current challenges calls for the refinement of the current assessment, identification, formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation tools. The objectives are to identify the electoral reality with respect to any proposed initiative or requested support, including the time necessary to adequately deliver results, required resources, security and logistic constraints and financial implications. The appreciation of the constant impact that electoral assistance exerts on the democratic development of any country should be borne in mind when a new multi-year strategy of assistance is planned by the relevant development agencies, in coordination with partner country institutions. In this context it is crucial to give adequate consideration to the available entry points for assistance in the medium and long term.
Programming interventions for the purpose of electoral assistance should be based on a clear recognition of what phase of the electoral cycle the partner country is in, and what is required to promote democratic development and good governance. There is now more attention paid to the complementary aspects of electoral assistance and election observation - as two separate but interdependent pillars for electoral and democracy support, and to promote the establishment of the necessary synergies between the two activities. These synergies would ensure that election observation missions benefit from the experience gained through electoral assistance projects, and that the recommendations of election observation missions be duly taken into account for future electoral assistance interventions. Much of the attention of leading actors in electoral assistance such as UNEAD, UNDP, EC and International IDEA is focused on the development of new assessment methodologies that take into account these complementarities – in order to better identify, plan and implement beneficiary-driven assistance programmes and missions.
The Ottawa Conference, while drawing on expertise and conclusions provided at previous events (such as the UNDP Practice Meeting on Electoral Assistance of November 2004 and the EU Conference on Election support of September 2005), was instrumental in identifying the necessary tools to make the shift from long-term electoral support rhetoric to concrete commitments. The key to making this a reality is the enhancement of development agencies capacity to identify, plan and advocate with their own governments for more targeted and diversified support to electoral institutions. In consequence, the major recommendation was the call for the production, globalisation, adaptation and dissemination of resource material for developing awareness and understanding of the principles and practical implications of effective electoral assistance, including the production of a set of resource material and guides on the various topics.
In the past two years, several activities have been designed and implemented by the EC, UNDP and International IDEA targeting a more effective and timelier formulation, implementation and evaluation of electoral assistance projects, in line with the concepts of enhanced development agencies coordination of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. In the second half of 2006, International IDEA, UNDP and EC experts developed a training course and a related manual that is designed to raise EC and UNDP officials’ awareness of the complexities of electoral processes and the specific issues underpinning electoral assistance. In this context, three major joint training events for EC and UNDP officials took place to date ( Brussels September 2006, Dar Es Salaam November 2006 and Brussels October 2007) in cooperation with International IDEA. The content used for developing the training modules is based on the ACE Encyclopedia, and the three fresh publications in this field - the International IDEA Handbook on Electoral Management Design, the EC Methodological Guide on Electoral Assistance and the UNDP Electoral Assistance Implementation Guide. The methodology is a customisation of the BRIDGE methodology tailored for EC and UNDP policy and implementation officers working on electoral assistance.
The success of these training programmes, which will continue in 2008 with more joint training programmes (the next event is planned for the Srping of 2008 in Johannesburg and will see the launch of the e-learning pilot version of the course) has been the springboard for the consolidation of the EC-UNDP-IDEA partnership in developing tools and policies for making electoral assistance more effective. This programmatic partnership inspired the “Global Training Platform on Electoral Assistance” proposal, presented at the Annual Joint Donors’ Competence Forum (“Train 4 Dev”), the mechanism through which development cooperation agencies from around the world decide annually their common priorities for the capacity development of their own officials. The “Global Training Platform on Effective Electoral Assistance” is based on the unique experience gained through the joint training courses. It aims to make the training modules flexible and adjustable to the specific needs of every development agency seeking to improve its officials’ ability to plan and identify more sustainable approaches to electoral assistance. It can also be used for the capacity development of Regional EMB Associations, single EMBs, universities and practitioners.
The methodology employed for the joint training courses on effective electoral assistance has now been modified to cater for larger audiences and can be applied to wider initiatives in the domain of democratic governance and public administration reform. The Global Training Platform builds on the material codified and produced within the Practitioners’ Network component of the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network for content development and knowledge generation. The training methodology will draw upon the unique experience that UNDP and IDEA gained with BRIDGE and the insight gained by UNDP Learning Resource Center. The training programme is comprised of a five day “face to face” course, alongside longer and more flexible e-learning and blended versions. The courses will also provide a mechanism for evaluation and immediate feedback for further improvement and encourage participants to contribute at a later stage with their own direct experience.
The above described initiatives are now inscribed in a more official inter-institutional framework of the EC-UNDP Joint Task Force and the “Effective Democracy Assistance Conference” to be organised in 2008 under the auspices of International IDEA. The conference will draw together development agencies, practitioners and experts from each region to debate and build consensus on a comprehensive set of policy recommendations and how best to implement them. The event should culminate with the drafting of a universal declaration on ‘Global Effective Electoral Assistance Principles and Parameters’ to be adopted and ratified either on that occasion or at a subsequent event.
Next: Conclusions
