Global Launch of the Integrated Framework for Protecting Elections

About the Integrated Framework for Protecting Election

Democratic elections are essential for ensuring the functioning of democratic societies. However, when electoral challenges are of significant scope and not appropriately managed, they can undermine the integrity of electoral processes and the credibility of election results. Therefore, protecting electoral integrity is of existential importance for democratic societies.

With support from the Government of Canada, International IDEA has developed the Integrated Framework for Protecting Elections – a set of versatile, customizable and gender-sensitive resources that help national stakeholders prevent, manage and respond to electoral risks, threats and crises.

The Framework includes:

• The Protecting Elections Guide introduces the concept and other Framework resources. It also charts practical avenues whereby national stakeholders may use the Framework.
• The Protecting Elections Self-Assessment Survey assists user organizations in systematically assessing the importance, scope and quality of their existing safeguards to protect electoral integrity. Such awareness is often critical when optimizing efforts to protect elections at the organizational and/or country level.
• The Protecting Elections Training Curriculum is developed specifically to support users of the Framework in building practical knowledge and skills concerning key concepts of risk management, resilience-building and crisis management in elections.
• The Protecting Elections Resource Portal enables users to find and gather, quickly, comparative knowledge, experiences, policies and other resources to deal with specific electoral challenges.

These resources have been piloted with EMBs in Mauritius, Finland, Panama and Benin, and used with partners such as RECEF, AU, ECONEC, SADC-ECF and EMBs in Ukraine, Moldova, Malawi and others. During testing and piloting evidence of impact has been recorded.

Now finalized and available as a global public good, the Framework is ready to be scaled through national, regional and international partnerships.

About the launch

During the launch, International IDEA will introduce the Integrated Framework and its key resources. Representatives from the EMBs of Finland and Panama will share experiences and lessons learned from implementing the Framework in their national contexts.