BRIDGE “Voter Registration” for Africa French EMB representatives

 Following the BRIDGE “Voter Registration” 5-day Workshops held respectively in Pretoria at the end of June and Accra in July 2011, the same workshop has been conducted in Accra from 8th to 12th August, 2011, for Africa-French EMB representatives.

The course is part of the International IDEA’s AusAID funded program related to building capacity of African Election Management Body (EMB) personnel.  In 2008 International IDEA’s AusAID funded program encompassed 35 EMBs from across the African continent.

AusAID, through its Africa Governance Fund is providing funds for the continuation of International IDEA projects “BRIDGE Capacity-Building Training for Election Management Bodies in Africa: Support to the IDEA – African Union Joint Activity Plan 2011 – 2013”.

The aim of IDEA’s BRIDGE program in Africa is to utilize the BRIDGE training curriculum as a means to build capacity of election administrators from African Election Management Bodies. In addition it aims at building training skills and provides access to BRIDGE materials for electoral trainers through its Train the Facilitator program. The project is part of an on-going collaboration between International IDEA and the African Union Commission. The partnership is outlined in a “Joint Activity Plan” (JAP) between the two organizations.

Facilitators –

Four BRIDGE facilitators participated in the preparation and delivery of this course. They were as follows:

• Corneille NANGAA  YOBELUO, Accrediting Facilitator, IFES,
• Hubert AKUMIAH, Workshop Facilitator, IEC Ghana
• Veronique KANDO, Workshop Facilitator, Burkina Faso EMB
• Pierre Claver NDAYICARIYE, Semi-accredited Facilitator, Burundi EMB. 

The facilitating team quickly formed strong professional and productive relationships with the participants and these were maintained throughout the workshop. The team was a good combination of institutional and field electoral experiences with diverse countries’ background and this was important as it made a positive impact on the wealth of information throughout the workshop taking into consideration the fact that all the participants were top management from the different Electoral Management Bodies.

At the end of the workshop Pierre Claver NDAYICARIYE, Burundi EMB Chairperson was awarded a certificate as a BRIDGE Workshop Facilitator after successfully meeting requirements for Full Accreditation.

Participants –

Twenty three participants from Africa French speaking EMBs, Niger, Mali, Togo, Benin, Comoros, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Chad and Burkina Faso attended the course.

Course Agenda and Content –

The training workshop was conducted from Monday, 8 August to Friday 12 August 2011 and followed the typical structure of the Voter Registration courses held earlier for English EMB representatives.

The opening ceremony held on Monday, 08 August 2011 was led by 2 speakers representing International IDEA as the project organizer and AusAID who funded the project.

The five-day course covered the following modules:

• Guiding principles of voter registration;
• Types of voter registers;
• Voter registration procedures;
• Voter registration information management;
• IT in voter registration;
• Vendor presentation and Q&A session;
• Operational planning;
• Stakeholders;
• Voter’s roll audit;
• Sustainability;
• Voter education.

An invitation extended to a Voter Registration Vendor, Lithotech-Bording, was an additional variation at this workshop. The presentation was given by Lithotech-Bording Division Manager, Denmark, IINGE MYRTHUE. The presentation was intended to show case technology used in the voter registration process.