UNDP trains election stakeholders on democracy sk...

UNDP trains election stakeholders on democracy skills

Patricia Mashiri

ZIM NOW REPORTER

United Nations Development Program has supported Zimbabwean civil society organizations and institutions dedicated to advancing democracy with Building Resources In Democracy, Governance and Elections Train the Facilitator capacity-building workshop.

The workshop is aimed at equipping participants with BRIDGE curriculum, facilitation skills and electoral knowledge as they prepare for the next electoral cycle.

Speaking during the opening ceremony of the ten-day workshop, Vincent da Cruz, UNDP Chief Technical Advisor said that their goal has always been of promoting democracy in countries and electoral processes.

“Personally, I think that a key lesson is that no democracy can ever be said to be fully “consolidated”. Democracy needs to be sustained, refreshed, defended and improved, all the time, and everywhere in the world. Promoting democratic governance is of course something that UNDP works for in many countries around the globe.

“Of course, UNDP does not and cannot work alone, but always on request of host governments and in partnership with national institutions – governments, election management bodies, constitutional commissions, parliaments, the judiciary, academia, the media and civil society – as well as other election assistance providers, international partners and sister agencies of the United Nations such as UN Women.

This is also the case in Zimbabwe. UNDP has worked with ZEC and other election stakeholders for many years. In 2023, we supported ZEC with its voter education, together with the Zimbabwe Media Commission and UNESCO we strengthened the capacity of media professionals and we also worked more broadly in support of peace and electoral justice. We continue this work this year, including through BRIDGE,” he said

He also highlighted that UNDP is planning to support a series of BRIDGE workshops that ZEC intends to implement later this year.

Rindai Chipfunde- Vava, the accredited BRIDGE facilitator said BRIDGE is the only professional course on elections.

“We have few courses on elections at universities. It will assist us in terms of giving skills to electoral stakeholders and also facilitation skills, collaborations as you can see we got representatives from Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the Media Commission, Human rights commission. This is going to harness relationships and bring us together and focusing on how we can enhance future electoral processes.

“We have seen great improvements in terms of collaborations. From countries who have done BRIDGE workshops we have seen great improvements from how they apply best practices, lessons learnt from other countries and improvement in terms of how they conduct elections,” Chipfunde-Vava said

The BRIDGE Workshop has come at the right moment when the country has just come out of the 2023 elections as it gives the electoral stakeholders chance to review how the electoral process was conducted and equipped with the curriculum.

Speaking to ZimNow, Commissioner Ambassador Rodney Kiwa, ZEC Deputy Chairperson said the program is important to them as they need to understand what is involved in the whole program.

“The program is about bringing resources in democracy, governance and electoral process. I’m a student and have started the course today and I would like to share my appreciation at the end of the program.

“I’m informed that involves issues to do with democracy, transparency, integrity that enhance democracy. It also means ZEC has to work with other partners making them what ZEC is all about and understand them form instance we are talking about media commission, gender commission. The notation of democracy has no end stage it’s a continuous and evolving process. There is room for improvement we can not say we are done,” he said.