ACE

Foreign Travel Guidelines for EMBs and Electoral Practitioners

ACE, April 17. 2015

The Question

This question is posted by ACE on behalf of PN member Abdiwahidi Hussein, IEBC Kenya.

I have been appointed into a task-force to "DEVELOP FOREIGN TRAVEL GUIDELINES" for Kenya's EMB the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

This is to request for input from members and preferably copies of documents on foreign travel policy/guidelines for EMBs or other electoral practitioners worldwide. I would appreciate urgent response as the matter is urgent.

I am requesting input on the Methodologies that can be used to develop the Foreign travel guidelines as well as the key areas (SCOPE) that does justice to the task of Developing a foreign travel guideline or policy. I would appreciate members experiences, advice and insights on this matter.

Summary of Responses

Practitioners' Network (PN) members addressed the question by suggesting that foreign affairs ministries are better equipped to help develop foreign travel guidelines. Additionally, PN members shared general guidelines for EMBs arranging trips overseas. A summary of the responses follows:

1. Foreign Affairs Ministries/Immigration Offices

The necessary preparations differ greatly depending on each specific country.
It is best to look up countries' travel policies by researching material that is developed by larger countries for their nationals who are abroad.
It is important to suggest that foreign visitors review laws and visa/immigration policies, but also explicitly state that EMB is not responsible for these types of issues.

2. General Foreign Travel Guidelines

For colleagues at EMBs with ICT teams, talk to them and see if a website where foreign ministry and immigration services can collectively look up and approve (or disprove) Visas online. Moldova's EMB has a website that was used by a PN member and was highly recommended.
Know the main objective of the trip and consequently which part of the EMB would benefit most.
Field officers are good candidates for foreign travel as their experience should be enriched for the common good of the EMB.
Be fair in the selection process ( i.e. equal number of males and females, benefits all regions of the country).
Make sure there are detailed reports by the groups who have traveled and that they are spread and shared with everyone else.
Improve staff morale by letting a wide array of people to travel and not just the same few every time.

External Resources:

http://www.dhs.gov/how-do-i/find-overseas-travel-alerts

http://aglobalworld.com/international-travel-warnings/travel-warnings.phpr

Contributing Members

Nelly Ilongo
Deyanira Galindo
Horacio Boneo

Re: Foreign Travel Guidelines for EMBs and Electoral Practitioners

Horacio Boneo, April 17. 2015

Travel advice (other than things like remembering to take any medications that you are required to use) is country specific. The advice is not the same if you travel to Mogadishu than if you travel to Monaco. It would be quite difficult for an EMB to collect information on most countries. The reasonable thing to do is to take advantage of the material developed by large countries for their nationals abroad. See for instance http://www.dhs.gov/how-do-i/find-overseas-travel-alerts or http://aglobalworld.com/international-travel-warnings/travel-warnings.php . If you search Google “travel to – name of the country” you will find usually a number of webpages with adequate information.

Re: Foreign Travel Guidelines for EMBs and Electoral Practitioners

Deyanira Galindo, April 17. 2015

My recommendation is to get in touch with your foreign affairs ministry and if there is a different ministry on immigration, so you need to get together those current laws.

In the other hand, it is very important that you make a statement that each foreign visitor must fulfill the immigration policies of your country and to get by themselves the visa issuance. The EMB shouldn't be responsible in those issues.

An advice is to check with the ICT team to set a registration form on the website which files can be shared and checked out by the foreign affairs ministry and the immigration officials in order that together can approve (or not) the visa. Moldova has an excellent mechanism in this regard that I had to use it for the last November electoral process and it worked out excellent.

Re: Foreign Travel Guidelines for EMBs and Electoral Practitioners

Nelly Ilongo, April 18. 2015

Abdulwahid I think it's important to understand the main objective of the trip.

The scope too.if it's benchmarking trips then it's good to specify exactly which areas we are going for.i believe this will also define the destination as well as the composition of the group going out. For example,if you interest is ICT in Elections then the very technical people in that area are the ideal to go and of course we know which country we can get value for the resources to be spent.it will also be easier to come back and disseminate the information to the rest. Field officers especially the Returning officers should be given priority since that where the rubber meets the road. The experience of field officers need to be enriched for the common good of the EMB.

Benchmarking trips should be for all, from policy makers to the implementors so each trip should consist of a member from each cadre. This exposure should be seen to be done with fairness, staff-male and female, from all regions in the country should benefit.

It's also imperative to share this information with all the staff so that all members know who is out and on which trip. Of utmost importance,when a delegation on fact finding trip gets back,a detailed report done by the group ( not one person in the group)should be shared with all the staff.

Unless it's really something very technical,it's not fair to have some members going out many times at the advantage of others ,this kills staff morale.