Training and Professional Development in Electoral Administration

Building the EMB workforce’s capacities reinforces and inculcates electoral administration values and principles, those of integrity, impartiality, transparency, efficiency, sustainability and service-mindedness. By contrast, poor or inadequate training hampers service delivery and increases the risk of errors that negatively impact the reputation of the EMB or the election outcome itself.

On 28 November 2023, International IDEA presented findings and recommendations from ‘Training and Professional Development in Electoral Administration’ at the international conference “Improving Electoral Processes and Elections: The Role of Electoral Training Centres” organized by the Council of Europe. The event, which was attended by more than 50 participants in the Palais de l ’Europe in Strasbourg provided an opportunity for more than 20 EMBs, civil society organizations and the electoral assistance community to exchange findings on the topic. This, for example, included dialogue on standardized operational training directly relevant to the job of temporary workers as well as the need to include external stakeholders when delivering training. Special emphasis was placed on the need to strengthen the administrative unit (or centres) in charge of training, professional development, and education. On the topic of establishing and operating electoral training centres lessons were shared by representatives from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, North Macedonia, and Ukraine. 

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International IDEA’s policy paper, published in May 2023, is the first global comparative study on training and institutional capacity. The paper is supplemented with findings from case studies (Australia, India, Moldova, Nigeria, and Peru), an EIP-International IDEA electoral management survey, a podcast series/interviews with practitioners, a dashboard, articles, events and workshop reports. 

The policy paper provides recommendations for practitioners seeking to strengthen their training and professional development programmes, as well as highlighting recommendations for the electoral assistance community.