The workshop brought together 40 participants from 20 RECEF member states, as well as representatives from the African Union, ECONEC, Réseau électoral de l’océan Indien (REOI), the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, and Global Affairs Canada—the project’s donor. The event was designed as a platform for Francophone electoral management bodies (EMBs) to jointly engage in mapping risk factors to electoral integrity and explore strategies for preventing and mitigating them.
To meet the needs of the Francophone audience, all workshop materials were made available in French. Also, French-speaking facilitators from International IDEA, RECEF, and OEC Mauritius—as well as an external gender expert—led the working sessions.
The workshop focused on identifying, classifying, and treating electoral risks, threats and crises. The agenda combined plenary presentations, case studies (featuring experiences from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Élections Québec, and Madagascar), and breakout group sessions. During group exercises, participants collaboratively mapped internal (process-related) and external (context-related) risks using International IDEA’s guides on internal and external risk factors. Next, a French translation of the Protecting Elections Heat Map model— was used as a tool to assess risks’ likelihood and impact and identify corresponding prevention and mitigation actions.
While plenary discussions provided broader conceptual framing, the group work created valuable space for peer exchange. Feedback from participants in terms of the relevance of the topic and methods used was overwhelmingly positive, with the majority rating the workshop as beneficial to highly beneficial. Notably, the Election Commission of Benin expressed strong interest in follow-up support. In response, a dedicated capacity-building workshop is being considered for August 2025.
This successful collaboration highlights the importance of linguistic inclusivity in global democracy support efforts and demonstrates how Francophone EMBs can lead the way in protecting electoral integrity through context-sensitive and collaborative approaches.
This event was made possible thanks to the key financial contributions of RECEF and the Office of the Electoral Commissioner of Mauritius, the generous support from the Government of Canada through the Protecting Elections project, and additional contributions from the European Union through the SPEC project, which enabled the participation of representatives from the African Union and ECONEC.
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