Activities in 2004
On December 1-2 Mozambique held its 3rd multiparty General and Presidential Elections to view Mozambique’s electoral laws for the elections in English.
In 2004 IDEA’s project continued to focus on capacity building training for the election management body in preparation for the 2004 General and Presidential Elections. The central activities included:
-
BRIDGE Train the Facilitators’ Course - In order to ensure the sustainability of these capacity-building initiatives in Mozambique IDEA, in partnership with the Mozambique’s Technical Secretariat for the Administration of Elections (STAE), held the firstBRIDGE Train the Facilitators course in Portuguese from May 17-26. The course was attended by 29 members of STAE staff from all provinces in the country.
-
Handbook on Electoral Regulations 2004 -An updated version of the 2003 Handbook on Mozambique’s Electoral Laws has been published in collaboration with EISA. The Handbook provides an accessible overview of the electoral process governing the 2004 general elections with all key electoral legislation and regulations included. The book’s text is in both Portuguese and English. The publication has been distributed to the Election Management Bodies, political parties, journalists and international and national election observers.
-
Training of Provincial and District Election Commissioners - A 2-day training course was held in each province in the capital city for the Provincial and District Electoral Commissions. The course covered the role of the electoral commissions in the 2004 general elections. The training is operational and is designed to enhance the capacity and professionalism of the electoral commissioners. The course participants were: · 110 Provincial Electoral Commissioners from each CPE · 1490 District Electoral Commissioners from each CDE IDEA’s ongoing project in Mozambique to support the electoral process is funded by Finland, Ireland and Norway.
Activities in 2003
International IDEA has been engaged in a project in Mozambique to support and strengthen electoral processes through capacity building training within the election management body. The project has been implemented through a partnership between STAE (the Election Administration Technical Secretariat of Mozambique) and IDEA, since 2002.
The project started in 2002 when IDEA and STAE conducted a capacity building training project for 77 of the permanent national and provincial STAE staff. The training course used is known as “the BRIDGE Project”. A special 10-day BRIDGE pilot course was designed to meet the specific needs of STAE. One 10 day course was held in each of the three regions between October and December 2002. The project was funded by a contribution from Finland and Denmark.
The success of the pilot project in 2002 lead to IDEA and STAE cooperating on joint activities in 2003 based on improving operational training material and training techniques in STAE for the 2003 local government elections. This included the development of operational training courses and material for the used by STAE for the 2003 local government elections. The BRIDGE training Material and Methodology were adapted to create training courses and materials on Voter Registration and Election Day “Polling and Counting”. These courses will be used by STAE to train their personnel for the local elections and general elections in 2004.
The operational training courses developed have been integrated into the existing STAE training programme. Two “Train the Trainers” courses were held to teach the STAE national trainers the new teaching methodology and course content. The training was conducted by the national STAE Department of Training.
Building on the work done on course development and improving training capacity within the Election Management Bodies in 2003 IDEA and STAE conducted a further activity funded by Finland and Ireland. The project provided 2 days of training for the 110 members of the 11 Provincial Electoral Commissions (CPE) and the 330 members of the 33 District Electoral Commissions (CDE) as well as the 33 directors of the 33 District STAEs in preparation for the 2003 Municipal Government Elections. The training sessions were held in each province and covered the role of the electoral commissions in the election process. The training was held during October 2003.
In addition to Mozambique, BRIDGE training has been held in East Timor, Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Palestine, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Australia.
