The BRIDGE Course (developed in partnership with the Australian Electoral Commission and the United Nations) is a comprehensive capacity-building training course especially developed for electoral administrators. The curriculum covers all aspects of elections and uses an outcomes-based adult learning methodology to build capacity and enhance professionalism.

In order to ensure the sustainability of these capacity-building initiatives IDEA seeks to also provide opportunities for national trainers to be taught how to deliver BRIDGE training. These courses are know as BRIDGE Train the Facilitators Courses and are a compulsory part of the formal accreditation process for all BRIDGE trainers.

In Pretoria South Africa the 4th International BRIDGE train the Facilitators in English was held from Monday 20 September -1 October 2004.

The training was run in partnership between International IDEA, the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) and Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA). The training venue was hosted by the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa at its Headquarters in Pretoria.

The course had 26 participants from 21 countries around the world including; Southern Africa (Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zanzibar, Zimbabwe) West East and Central Africa (Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Uganda) Latin America (Mexico, Costa Rica) Europe (Spain, Sweden) Middle East (Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen).

The participants come from election management bodies or other organisations working with elections.

Funding for the project has been generously provided by the Australian Government through a grant from AusAID. The AusAID grant not only contributed to funding the course but also the full sponsorship of all the participants from the Southern Africa region to attend.

For further information contact: Margot Gould