BRIDGE: improving electoral management in Africa

Electoral processes can be undermined if professional election administrators lack the necessary skills to do their job properly. In May 2007, International IDEA trained elections professionals from nine East and Southern Africa countries in Pretoria, South Africa, using the BRIDGE curriculum.

BRIDGE (Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections) is a training curriculum on election administration designed to improve the skills, knowledge and confidence of election administrators. It is widely recognized as the most comprehensive training curriculum of its kind in the world.

Participants at the BRIDGE Train the Facilitators Course, 7-18 May 2007, Pretoria, South Africa

Interview with Margot Gould, Programme Officer for International IDEA’s Africa Programme, who was one of the trainers at the recent BRIDGE course in Pretoria.

Could you tell us about International IDEA’s East and Southern Africa BRIDGE programmes?

The East and Southern Africa BRIDGE programmes have been run by IDEA for the last two years in partnership with the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa. It’s a project sponsored by the Australian government’s aid body, AusAID, and it has been focusing on a quite interesting and important aspect of BRIDGE: the transfer of skills to the election management bodies themselves. The BRIDGE Project has developed a 10-day “Train the Facilitator” course which is designed to transfer skills in both the BRIDGE curriculum content, which is the technical information about election administration, as well as increasing skills on how to conduct effective adult training. Successful participants are then accredited as BRIDGE Facilitators, which is a prerequisite for running BRIDGE training courses in their home organizations.

So we have been running a series of “Train the Facilitator” courses, for participants from nine election management bodies in East and Southern Africa: Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zanzibar, Uganda and Zambia. Our most recent one was held in Pretoria in May this year.

How is BRIDGE normally perceived by the people taking the course?

BRIDGE is a comprehensive curriculum. It’s unique and has now been recognised as the world leader of this kind of training. And it’s special in two ways. First, the scope of the material covers all aspects of the electoral cycle. And second, is the adult learning methodology used. Teaching adults is very different from teaching children and by using adult teaching methodology we are able to make a bigger impact.

So we see that people are very enthusiastic when they attend the BRIDGE training programmes because the training technique is so dynamic. People are very engaged.

What kind of impact do you expect from BRIDGE training?  

With the BRIDGE programme we hope to achieve two main impacts. The first is at the individual level. We hope that the individual elections administrators’ skills are improved and that participants learn more about their profession and are therefore able to do a better job.

At the second level, BRIDGE has an impact on the institution itself, because when the individuals that work there are more competent and are more professional, the institution itself also improves.

Have you seen any direct impact that you can tell us about, any anecdote?

Many instances come to mind, but I can illustrate the impact of BRIDGE training by referring to Mozambique. International IDEA had a project in Mozambique from 2002 to 2005 where we were working very closely with the election management body (STAE) on various aspects of improving their capacity through the BRIDGE programme. And one of the priorities was to improve their operational training – that is the training for polling day staff – the officers who work in the polling stations on Election Day. During the 2004 elections it was widely acknowledged by domestic and international election observers that the professionalism and competency of the staff at the polling stations was better than it had ever been, and that this improvement was a result of the training they had received. There is no doubt that this had a direct impact on the smooth running of the elections.

Where is International IDEA going to conduct BRIDGE training this year?

This year we have many plans for BRIDGE training. In Africa, there will be a continuation of our regional BRIDGE programme involving nine countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. We will also organize a specific training course for the Kenyan electoral commission as part of the preparations for the elections scheduled in Kenya for November this year. In Liberia IDEA is collaborating with IFES (a leading technical election assistance organization) to run a series of BRIDGE courses for the Liberian Electoral Commission and the electoral magistrates. In the Arab world we are planning to run the first ever BRIDGE “Train the Facilitators” course in Arabic with participants from a number of countries in the region. There will also be a BRIDGE training organized in Egypt. In Latin America a BRIDGE course in Spanish will be held in Bolivia. And in the South Caucuses we have been running BRIDGE in Armenia where International IDEA also has a project office.

How do you see the future of BRIDGE?

I think one of the most important things to happen this year was the addition of two new project partners: IFES and UNDP. BRIDGE is becoming increasingly acknowledged as the world leader in this kind of training, and I think what we are going to see BRIDGE being implemented in more and more places around the world.

Interview with Margot Gould, 13 June 2007, Stockholm, Sweden. Interviewer: Monika Ericson, Communications Officer at International IDEA.

About BRIDGE

BRIDGE partners are International IDEA, the Australian Electoral Commission, the UN Electoral Assistance Division, IFES and the UN Development Programme. Since its development in 2001 BRIDGE has been expanded and later this year a new version – BRIDGE 2 – will be launched. Read more about BRIDGE.