This conference paper is the outcome of the swisspeace annual conference 2010. It brings together analytical and practical insights into the question of elections as a peace building instrument in post-conflict societies.
This report highlights evidence from around the world that suggests that elections with integrity matter for empowering women, fighting corruption, delivering services to the poor, improving governance, and ending civil wars. To be clear, elections with integrity cannot by themselves develop economies, create good governance, or make peace, but recent research does suggest that improved elections can be a catalytic step towards realizing democracy’s transformative potential.
These Draft Principles have been revised based on discussions by participants in the “First Roundtable on International Support to Elections” on 1 March 2010, hosted by the OECD-DAC Governance Network (GOVNET).
The purpose of this Guide is to provide Country Office staff with clear direction on how to plan, formulate, monitor and implement electoral assistance using the concept of the Electoral Cycle to identify effective entry points, rather than approaching elections as a one-off event.
This publication is a platform for reflection on the current state of the democratic system. The lessons and experiences expressed within it show where new challenges have emerged and how they are overcome. It is a vision that reveals eight particular cases, yet illustrates the reality of many others.
This Overview is a distillation of the IDEA publication Electoral System Design: The New International IDEA Handbook, 2005. It contains a summary of the key principles of electoral system choice, the pros and cons of the options available and advice to the institutional designer. Examples and case studies from the original handbook have been removed, and supporting arguments shortened.
This publication provides an introduction to the different electoral systems which exist around the world, some brief case studies of recent electoral system reforms, and some practical tips to those political parties involved in development or reform of electoral systems.
Young people between the ages of 15 and 25 constitute a fifth of the world’s population. While they are often involved in informal, politically relevant processes, such as activism or civic engagement, they are not formally represented in national political institutions such as parliaments and many of them do not participate in elections. This can impact on the quality of democratic governance.
This evaluation examines UNDP contribution to strengthening electoral systems and processes between 1990 and 2011, and in the past decade in particular. Looking across a diverse range of contexts, the evaluation assesses the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of interventions, the added value of UNDP support, its responsiveness to evolving demand, and the challenges and opportunities inherent to the process.
These new Guidelines are intended as a global reference tool, expanding on the legal basis of the user-friendly checklists, for national stakeholders that want to assess their electoral process vis-à-vis the obligations their state has voluntarily undertaken. The focus is, very deliberately, on national accountability and on building the necessary national ownership required for any sustainable reform process.
This study is based on a document review, a mission to Brussels on 14-15 July to meet representatives of the EC/UNDP Joint Task Force on Electoral Assistance, of EuropeAid and of the European External Action Service. Telephone interviews were held with the democracy advisor of USAID in Washington, the governance advisor/election focal point of DFID in London and an election specialist in UNDP’s Democratic Governance Group, New York.
This paper presents an overview of the main challenges to the integration of media development in electoral assistance programming. Despite widespread acknowledgement that the media is critical to electoral processes, and that it has the potential to impact voter behaviour, electoral assistance providers do not consistently prioritize its integration into their work.
International IDEA endeavours through this publication to capture and take stock of the experiences of regional organizations in promoting and protecting the integrity of elections.
This participants’ guidebook consists of an overview of the work that the EC and UNDP collaborate on in the field of electoral assistance.