By Margot Gould, Programme Officer, International IDEA’s Africa and Middle East Programme
2009 has been a very productive year for BRIDGE Election Administration training courses in Africa. International IDEA in partnership with the African Union launched an ambitious BRIDGE programme which trained 122 participants from 35 African countries during 2009.
Australian High Commissioner to South Africa Ms Ann Harrap gives a speech at the opening ceremony for the BRIDGE 5-Day Professional Development Course for Senior Election Administrators, 2-6 February 2009. Pretoria, South Africa.
Photo ©: Rushdi Nackerdien
An election is the largest and most complex logistical operation that a country ever undertakes in peace time. This is often not well understood, and indeed, the better an election is run, the simpler it looks. Committed, ethical, professional and confident people are the key to increasing the prospects of running a good election, in both emerging and more established democracies.
BRIDGE (Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections) is the world’s foremost training curriculum on electoral processes. As a professional development tool, it primarily affects participants at the individual level. The BRIDGE workshops use an activity-based approach that maximizes retention of knowledge and skills learned. In addition, the workshops are designed to promote or reinforce professional confidence, ethics, understanding of principles of best electoral practice, and access to networks of peers. BRIDGE has the potential to trigger change at an organizational level: broader understanding of an organization, morale, and cohesion within the organization. Workshops encourage participants to reflect on bettering their organization, providing comparative examples and alternative approaches, generating blueprints or support for organizational reform.
The curriculum spans four main areas: the foundation of election administration, electoral stakeholders, operations and electoral architecture. There are 23 modules in the BRIDGE curriculum and over 10,000 pages of materials.
Since 2008 International IDEA and the African Union have been collaborating on a broad programme called the “Joint Activity Plan”(JAP). One of the central components of the JAP is a partnership between International IDEA and the African Union Democracy and Electoral Assistance Unit (DEAU). The BRIDGE project is part of this collaboration.
Participants at the BRIDGE 5-day professional Development workshop. Accra, Ghana 9-13 March 2009. Photo ©: Theo Dowetin
The aim of International IDEA’s BRIDGE programme in Africa is to utilize the BRIDGE curriculum as a means to build the capacity of election administrators. In addition it aims at building training skills and provide access to BRIDGE materials for electoral trainers through its “Train the Facilitator” programme.
During 2009 International IDEA organized six BRIDGE courses in Africa; four in English and two in French targeting 35 Anglophone and Francophone African Election Management Bodies.
The courses held were:
- English 5-Day Professional Development Course for Senior Election Administrators, 2-6 February 2009. Pretoria, South Africa. Attended by 21 participants from 9 countries. The course focused on key elements relevant to senior level leadership of EMBs such as strategic planning, leadership and organizational culture.
- English 5-day Professional Development Course for Senior Election Administrators, 9-13 March 2009. Accra, Ghana. Attended by 23 participants from 11 countries. The course content was the same as for the English version run in Pretoria in February. • French 5-day Professional Development Course for Senior Election Administrators, 20-24 May 2009. Accra, Ghana. Attended by 18 participants from 10 countries. The course content was the same as the other courses in Pretoria and Accra in English.
- English BRIDGE Train the Facilitators Course, 8-19 June 2009. Accra, Ghana. Attended by 21 participants from 12 countries. The BRIDGE “Train the Facilitator” Course aims at ensuring sustainability in professional development training in the field of elections by transferring the necessary training skills to the national electoral commissions so that they can utilize BRIDGE for their own national training programmes. At the end of the course participants are semi-accredited as BRIDGE facilitators, meaning they are allowed to run BRIDGE and have access to the BRIDGE materials. Full accreditation occurs after a practical training component is completed in the field.
- English BRIDGE Train the Facilitators Course, 5-18 October 2009. Pretoria, South Africa. Attended by 20 participants from nine countries.
- French BRIDGE Train the Facilitators Course, 9-20 November 2009. Accra, Ghana. Attended by 19 participants from 12 countries.
The training courses are run by BRIDGE facilitation experts who bring their skills as trainers and knowledge as election experts to the table, further enhancing the quality of the training courses. Another outcome of the BRIDGE project is the expanding pool of BRIDGE facilitators who can run training courses in their national organization or even at the international level.
The peer network that attending BRIDGE training courses creates between participants is also an important aspect of the BRIDGE approach. These informal networks add to the sense of belonging to a unique profession of experts. Indeed the international aspect of International IDEA’s Africa BRIDGE programme has fostered an understanding between these election administrators that the pressures and challenges they face are not unique to them and more importantly can hear how others have solved these issues.
All these activities were part of the project funded by the Australian Government’s grant through AusAID.
The 35 countries that participated in the BRIDGE programme were; Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Benin, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Comores, Congo (DRC), Congo (Brazzaville), Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, The Gambia , Ghana, Guinée, Liberia, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritius, Madagascar, Malawi, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, South Africa, Togo, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zanzibar, Zimbabwe.
BRIDGE Participants at the October 2009 Train the Facilitators Course in Pretoria South Africa.
Photo ©: Margot Gould
In addition over 2200 pages of the BRIDGE materials have been translated into French. IDEA has also developed an English-French Electoral Terminology Translation Glossary as a tool for translators to help ensure the accurate and consistent use of terminology in French translation. The glossary is available on the BRIDGE website and can be used for any electoral translation. The availability of the BRIDGE materials in French further supports the advancement of BRIDGE as a capacity building tool for the francophone world.
In 2010 and beyond IDEA will continue its goal of supporting the professional development of election administrators in Africa through the BRIDGE programme.
************************************
For more information contact Margot Gould, Programme Officer, Africa and Middle East Programme on e-mail: m.gould@idea.int
BRIDGE is a partnership between five leading organizations; International IDEA, UNDP, the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division, IFES and the Australian Electoral Commission.
Discuss
Tell a friend
