European Center for Election Assistance

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The European Center for Electoral Assistance ( European Center for Electoral Support, ECES ) is a nonprofit private foundation to promote sustainable democratic development , based in Brussels (Belgium). It provides advisory services and operational support to voters , such as voter organizations, civil society organizations (in the field of citizen and voter education and election observation ), political parties, parliaments, the media, security forces and election-related conflict mediators. The president is Monica Frassoni .

history

It was founded in December 2010 as part of the European Development Days forum organized by the European Commission in the Committee for Democracy and Human Rights. Since then, ECES has carried out various campaigns to support elections in around 35 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, most of which are financed by the EU and the EU member states.

assignment

The work of ECES focuses on:

  • Electoral and democracy promotion,
  • Creation of synergies between election observation and election assistance programs,
  • Capacity building, cooperation, peer reviews and exchange of experience from a south-south perspective,
  • Support of knowledge development in election administration,
  • Develop leadership and conflict management skills for various voters through training and counseling services.

ECES is also a member of the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), a European network for the support of democracy, which is composed of 13 European, non-profit organizations from 12 EU member states and whose members have combined over 200 projects in around 130 countries have performed. ECES and EPD have developed the “European Response to Election Cycle Support”, a strategy for implementing EU democracy and electoral support through European non-profit organizations.

The strategy was presented in June 2016 at the European Development Days. ECES participated in the European Partnership for Democracy and published the lessons of its support for democratic and electoral processes over the past five years. ECES also participated in the high-level body "Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 16 for Peaceful and Inclusive Societies - Opportunities and Challenges in Security and Development" chaired by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign and Security Policy . The committee consisted of the newly elected Presidents of the Central African Republic Faustin-Archange Touadéra and Burkina Faso Roch Marc Christian Kaboré and the youth activist Marouane Bakin, founder of the «Makers of Hope for Human Rights». ECES was represented by Thijs Berman , head of the ECES funded project in the Central African Republic.

Area of ​​responsibility

Following the EURECS approach, ECES implements a number of activities for voters:

  • Analyzes of elections and political economy,
  • Prevent, mitigate and manage election-related conflicts,
  • Election Crisis Response Center and Conflict Mapping,
  • Support of political parties,
  • Parliamentary support,
  • Media surveillance and institutional communication,
  • Civil and voter education,
  • Awareness campaigns,
  • Capacity building for local authorities for credible and sustainable electoral processes,
  • Integrity and quality management systems in the electoral process in accordance with ISO standard 17582: 2014 for election management bodies,
  • Procurement of voting material,
  • Ballot design and transmission of results,
  • Capacity development through training programs,
  • Leadership and conflict management skills for voters - in collaboration with the Center for Creative Leadership , in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic and English.,
  • "BRIDGE" training courses on building resources for democracy, governance and elections,
  • Training on effective electoral support.

Important projects

Burkina Faso

The Multi-Donor Project to Support the Credibility and Transparency of the Burkina Faso Elections (PACTE BF) was designed to provide technical and operational support to the National Electoral Administration (INEC). The project, carried out by ECES in partnership with the Osservatorio di Pavia, was intended to support INEC in carrying out its mission, namely in organizing presidential and legislative elections (2015) and local elections (2016).

Guinea

ECES began its activities in Guinea in 2014 with a project to support strengthening the capacities of the National Assembly (PARCAN I). Since then, ECES has been very active in supporting electoral processes in Guinea and, in addition to expanding the National Assembly Support Project (PARCAN II) in 2015, launched two projects to support the credibility and transparency of the elections in Guinea Conakry ( PACTE GUINNE I and II) carried out in 2015 and 2016. These EU-funded projects aim to strengthen voter capacities by supporting newly installed democratic institutions, media and civil society, and helping electoral disputes by strengthening potential conflict.

Madagascar

The EU-funded project to support the credibility and transparency of the electoral process in Madagascar (PACTE-MADAGASCAR) was launched in 2013-2014 by strengthening the capacities of local voters, such as civil society organizations, the media, political parties, election candidates, lawyers and CENIT (Independent National Electoral Commission for Transition), designed for a more professional, impartial and systematic management of the electoral process in Madagascar.

Comoros

As part of EU support for democratic processes, ECES carried out its first EU-funded project in the Comoros in 2014 with a project aimed at strengthening the organization of credible and transparent elections for parliamentary elections and elections for island advisers (2015 ) and to strengthen voter capacities (PACTE Comoros I). On the basis of this first successful collaboration in supporting the electoral government and other Comorian voters, a new ongoing project in support of the organization of presidential and gubernatorial elections began in 2016 in order to further pursue the efforts of PACTE-Comoros I while they use the recommendations of the election observation missions (2015) and the conclusions of their external evaluation.

South African Development Community

The overall aim of the project "Preventing Violence Against Violence in SADC - PEVSADC" is to support important actors such as civil society organizations in the South African Development Community (SADC) in preventing violence and conflicts through the SADC election support network. PEV-SADC started in 2013 and has two components: a comprehensive capacity development for civil society, voter organizations and other stakeholders in the electoral process and a research component intended to collect first-hand data on election-related violence and conflict, which in turn will be fed to an observatory.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ EPD website
  2. ↑ Internet presence of the European Development Days 2016 ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eudevdays.eu
  3. ↑ Support for the 2016 local elections. KFW, accessed on February 5, 2017 .
  4. ^ Preventing Electoral Violence in the Countries of the Southern African Development Community (PEV-SADC). Retrieved February 5, 2017 .