First BRIDGE training course in Egypt

The first ever BRIDGE training course in Egypt was held in Cairo from 8-12 July 2007. The course was coordinated by three BRIDGE project partners: International IDEA, IFES and UNDP, together with the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) of Egypt.

Twenty participants representing the Ministry of Justice, Parliament, State Court, the National Council for Information, civil society organizations and UNDP attended the five day programme.

In the last few years Egypt has engaged in a rich debate about electoral reform. The country has revised its constitution allowing for directly electing the President. Other reforms were implemented last May and included the establishment of an independent election commission. In addition, the Egyptian electorate has cast its vote in three different elections in the past year: presidential, parliamentary and Shura Council elections.

The overall objective of the training was to provide those involved in elections at different levels in Egypt with comparative experience and an understanding of the issues central to electoral reform. To this end, the training was tailored and a special focus was given to the following BRIDGE modules:

• International standards and principles of election administration.
• Different types of election management bodies around the world and the role of election administration.
• Principles for electoral systems design.
• Comparative electoral systems and their consequences.
• Electoral reform processes and advice for decision makers.
• Principles of voter registration, different types of registers, and issues to consider in voter registration process.
• The use of quotas and the principle of representation.

Different experiences from the region and other parts of the world helped participants to assess their own situation and to identify best practice.

The training was overwhelming appreciated by the participants who stressed the effectiveness of BRIDGE methodology, curriculum and the performance of the facilitators in their evaluations of the course. The participants also identified the need for more BRIDGE training to cover other important aspects of elections.

A number of participants, including two from Iraq, became fully accredited BRIDGE trainers as a result.

The Cairo course is an integral component of the wider strategy to expand BRIDGE in the Arab world. Other activity has included two capacity building workshops organized with UNDP, IFES and SCER (Supreme Commission for Election and Referenda in Yemen) in 2005 and 2006. In November 2006 International IDEA conducted the first BRIDGE ‘Train the Facilitators’ course (TtF) for 20 participants from 9 Arab countries. A second TtF in Arabic is scheduled for September 2007 in Amman, Jordan, to be followed by a BRIDGE implementation workshop in October.