Institutions of Democracy – 1996 - Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA)
The Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) is a nonpartisan nonprofit founded in Johannesburg in 1996 to promote credible elections, citizen participation, and sustainable democracy across Africa. What began as an election-focused organization in Southern Africa has expanded into a continent-wide institution working with electoral bodies, political parties, legislatures, and civil society on governance, conflict mitigation, and democratic reform.
In this recording, Ilona Tip and Baïdessou Soukolgue discuss EISA’s long and storied history, from Ilona Tip’s involvement in the organization’s founding and earlier years to Baïdessou Soukolgue’s continuation of EISA’s mission as its current Executive Director.
Ilona Tip is a founding member of the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA), serving the organisation from its establishment in July 1996 until her retirement in 2022. When EISA was first formed—under a different name and with a more modest vision—she was among its founding team. Before EISA, Ms. Tip worked at the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa (IMSSA), an organisation focused on resolving labour and community disputes through mediation, negotiation, and arbitration. Through its Elections and Balloting Service, she gained early experience in running internal elections for trade unions and civic organisations, helping to shape her expertise in electoral processes. At EISA, she served as Senior Advisor for Conflict Management, Democracy, and Electoral Education, and later as Operations Director. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of the Witwatersrand and a Diploma in Education from the Johannesburg College of Education. With over 20 years of experience in curriculum development, Ms. Tip designed and implemented capacity-building programmes in voter and civic education, electoral observation, electoral conflict management, and related areas. She also played a key role in establishing regional networks supporting election management bodies and civil society organisations in Southern Africa. She has participated in more than 20 election observation missions across Africa and has represented EISA at numerous local, continental, and international forums.
Baïdessou Soukolgue is the Executive Director of the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA). Before joining EISA in 2009, he worked on reinforcing Civil Society Organisations’ Capacities and interaction with the Government in Chad within the framework of a national project funded by the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) and was a lecturer at the National Administration School of Chad and an assistant lecturer at the University of N’Djaména. Since 2009, he has assumed continuous and increasing responsibilities within EISA. He was successively Programme Officer in Chad (2009 – 2013), Electoral Expert in Madagascar (2013 – 2014), Electoral Expert and thereafter Country Representative in Central African Republic (2015 – 2016), Elections and Political Transition Specialist covering Mali and Madagascar (2017 – 2019), Electoral Expert in Democratic Republic of Congo (2018 – 2019), Country Director in Burundi (2020 – 2021) and Head of the EISA Elections and Political Processes Department in Cote d’Ivoire (2021). He has implemented and coordinated various support programmes for civil society organisations, political parties and parliaments in the fields of elections and political processes and democratic governance. Furthermore, he has accompanied and supported expert or election observation missions of the African Union and other sub-regional organisations in numerous African countries and provided a range of expertise to various partners of EISA. He has published or contributed to various articles for the use by political parties and civil society. He holds Masters Degrees in Public Law (University of N’Djaména/Chad), Political Science (Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaoundé/Cameroon), Development and Project Management (Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaoundé/Cameroon) and a Postgraduate Diploma in International Relations (National School for Administration, ENA, Strasbourg/France). In addition, he is a BRIDGE facilitator.
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