In collaboration with the Electoral Commissions Forum of the Southern African Development Community (ECF SADC) countries, International IDEA is organizing the fourth edition of the New Commissioners Orientation in Harare on 22-24 June. Conducted in English, the orientation will gather new election commissioners and senior staff from five SADC countries, namely Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe for a formal training in electoral management. For many of the participants – such as the delegation from the Malawi Electoral Commission that were sworn in only last week – this will represent the first time that they will dedicate themselves to the examination of election management issues together with their peers since their appointments.
The overall objective of the three-day orientation is to introduce and engage newly appointed electoral management body (EMB) members and senior staff to the mechanics, principles and good practices in the electoral field. This is to equip them with knowledge and skills to carry out their responsibilities with integrity, transparency and accountability. The orientation training also seeks to enhance peer learning and networking among ECF SADC member EMBs by providing a platform for interaction and exchanges and the sharing of best practices.
The orientation covers three key thematic issues, which include an overview of elections and electoral management; operations and stakeholders; and leadership and sustainability. A wide spectrum of elections-related work will be examined including, for example, international and regional electoral instruments governing democratic elections, the electoral cycle approach, electoral system design, strategic and operational planning, budgeting and total costs of elections, procurement processes and logistics. The training also elevates ongoing trends and discussions around challenges linked to use of technologies, party financing reporting mechanisms, and risk management.
This is the fourth time that International IDEA has collaborated with ECF SADC. Cooperation between International IDEA and SADC is in line with an MoU between the two organizations More activities are expected to be organized in the near future.
