More than 70 donors, recipients and implementing agencies from 32 countries gathered in Ottawa, Canada, 2-4 May 2006 to discuss “Effective Electoral Assistance – Supporting Sustainable Elections”.
Organized by IDEA, in collaboration with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the conference looked at how money spent on running free and fair elections could be better spent, and how electoral aid can impact on sustainable development.
"This meeting has shown that there is a need to assess the impact and effectiveness of democracy assistance. Getting elections right is critical for that. Effective electoral assistance requires that both donors and implementing agencies look beyond elections day. With this conference, IDEA plans to come up with common guidelines to shift the focus from an event-driven approach to a more long term and developmental approach to electoral assistance", said Vidar Helgesen, IDEA’s secretary-general, in his closing remark.
Claire Dansereau, vice president of Canadian Corps (a CIDA agency), stressed in her address that the power of elections—and democracy—is to set the stage for sustainable development.
Elections expert Ron Gould examined the realities of electoral assistance, and suggested that IDEA and its partners develop a tool to identify cultural and religious factors, infrastructure, weather, security, and other issues that affect elections.
Michel Maley, director of the Australian Election Commission, talked about the cost of technology in elections management, the benefits and risks of using technology such as computers for voter registration and vote counting, and why technology does not guarantee credible elections.
Andrew Ellis, head of IDEA’s electoral processes programme, addressed the issue of money invested to help electoral management bodies (EMBs) train polling staff and organize elections on time. He said there must be a shift to invest in EMBs as institutions, and to support them in becoming less dependent on external funding and expertise while gaining and retaining credibility.
Rafael Lopez Pintor, from the Autonomous University of Madrid, looked at the links between elections and democratic governance.
What was unique about this conference is that it tackled all perspectives at the same time. Experiences were shared between the beneficiaries, as representatives of the electoral management bodies from Palestine (Ammar Al Dwaik, Chief Electoral Officer of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission), Sierra Leone, Lesotho and Indonesia talked about what type of aid works and what type of aid does not; the donors, including the European Union, CIDA and the United States Agency for International Development; the technical advisers; and the observers.
Conference participants developed tangible recommendations for common guidelines and standards between the donors, the implementing agencies and the recipients on how electoral assistance can be improved. These include:
- Develop assessment tools to identify the real needs, formulate, implement and evaluate assistance programmes which complement democracy support in a sustainable manner.
- Develop training courses for donors, aid agencies and recipients, to help identify what, when and how to assist
- Promote the use of the new ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, a portal that features authoritative information on nearly all aspects of elections, from voter registration ot vote counting
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