Sara Staino

Sara Staino works for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). She has over 12 years of electoral assistance and democracy building experience. Having worked on global policy for International IDEA’s Electoral Processes team from 2004, focusing mainly on Electoral Managemen and Effective Electoral Assistance she joined IFES as a Training and Capacity Development Specialist in Sudan in 2010. Amid the Arab Spring in 2011, Sara rejoined IDEA as the Program Manager for the West Asia and North Africa Program, to set up and manage regional and country specific democracy building programs in the Middle East. Since January 2015, Sara works for UNDP as the BRIDGE Curricula Manager and Update Coordinator. Starting January 2017, she is also the Coordinator of the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network. She holds a Masters’ of Social Science (M.S.S), with a Major in Political Science and has worked as a University Lecturer at the University of Örebro, Sweden, teaching International Politics, International Election Observation and a course on Democratic Elections and International Electoral Support. Sara is the co-author of the International IDEA handbook on Electoral Management Design (1st edition) and an experienced BRIDGE facilitator with over 200 hours of facilitation and BRIDGE assessment and curriculum writing experience.

Thematic Areas of Expertise