Tim Sheehy

I am an independent consultant working on issues of elections, democracy, and governance. Most recently, I was chief author of a study on the Democracy in the Commonwealth (with Asma Jahangir, from the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, and Kwado Afari-Gyan, head of the Ghana Electoral Commission). The study, which has a Foreword by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, was published in November 2009. I have wide electoral experience in Africa and beyond. Over the past few years, I have been acting as a consultant to the EU on Zimbabwe, having drafted the EU Governance Profiles in 2004 and 2006 and been an advisor to its observation of the elections in 2000, 2002, 2005, and 2008. In early 2007, I was part of a team assisting the Government of Rwanda and its development partners in a joint assessment of governance, being responsible for the section on “governing justly.” In May 2007, I undertook an evaluation of the UNDP sponsored Election Assistance Programme (EAP) through which donors provided support for the controversial December 2007 Kenyan elections. In May/June 2007, I participated in a mid-term review of a UNDP programme entitled Strengthening Democracy and Electoral Processes in Cambodia (SDEP). In March 2004, I undertook an assessment for DFID of the state of preparedness of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) for the general election. I acted as an advisor to DFID on the development of its democracy programme of in Nigeria. In 2003, I undertook a review of its support for the elections; and provided a paper on democracy development for DFID’s Drivers of Change programme. Later that year, I represented the Commonwealth Secretariat on a joint Commonwealth, IFES, UNEAD study of the Nigerian electoral process. In September 2003, on behalf of the Commonwealth Secretariat, I was involved in an evaluation of the Cameroon electoral process. The report of that mission provided the basis for discussions held in London in November 2003 between the Government of Cameroon and the international community. In February 2006, I accompanied Joe Clark, the former Canadian PM, in his consultations with the Cameroon government on the establishment of an independent electoral management body. At the request of the EISA I was involved in a series of reviews of the electoral management bodies in Lesotho, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. These studies – covering the legal framework; electoral operations; public participation; and institutional development – were confidential to the electoral management bodies themselves. At the request of the Commonwealth Secretariat, I have prepared a series of policy papers exploring the implication of these concerns for the electoral management bodies in Botswana, Cameroon, and Malawi. As a result of this work, I was asked to draft a general policy paper on these issues – drawing broadly on Commonwealth experience – which was tabled at a Commonwealth Conference of Chief Electoral Officers which took place in India in February 2005.

Thematic Areas of Expertise