There is continuous pressure on EMBs to increase their capacities and performance in order to promote effectiveness and efficiency.
Sustainability refers to electoral policies and practices that are cost effective and realistic, and meet the needs of all stakeholders in the electoral processes, both now and in the future. It is a greater challenge in new and emerging democracies.
EMBs need to aim for financial and economic, institutional, socio-political and environmental sustainability in their activities, to enhance stakeholder confidence in the electoral process and to ensure their own survival, but do not necessarily need a permanent structure.
The main elements of sustainability are institutional, financial and economic, and human resource sustainability.
A comprehensive picture of an EMB’s sustainability and capacity is only feasible if accurate evaluations of all the main elements are combined.
Systemic, organizational and individual needs assessments can help an EMB identify sustainability issues.
Especially in new and emerging democracies, donor support levels and commitment have a major impact on EMB sustainability. Donor support may have positive and negative effects: it may improve the quality of a specific election, but its influence and any dependence by an EMB on it may have a negative impact on its sustainability.
Donors have a responsibility to ensure that their support promotes EMB sustainability, for example through coordination on EMB needs and support for skills transfer.
New technologies are seductive to EMBs, and often attractive to donors, but EMBs need to make objective decisions based on their long-term usefulness and impact on EMB sustainability. The extent to which new technologies are used by an EMB should be determined by the level of the country’s resource endowment and the benefits to be derived from their use over time.
Aiming for sustainability affects choices of electoral systems, and frameworks and procedures for costly, complex and integrity-demanding electoral processes such as boundary delimitation, voter registration, voting, and vote counting and tabulation. EMBs need to carefully consider the necessary levels of integrity required and the technology used for these processes, and their effects on financial and socio-political sustainability.
Human resources, and their knowledge and experience, are an EMB’s greatest asset. Investment in developing and retaining human resources, and in ensuring that institutional memory survives the loss of experienced staff, is an essential ingredient of EMB sustainability.
Effective materials design, procurement and management policies — based on rigorous needs and cost-effectiveness analyses, and tools such as life cycle assessments — contribute significantly to EMB sustainability.
