Honduras, Strategic Planning 1 (TJE), UNDP

BRIDGE workshops on Strategic Planning for Honduras EMBs                    

Tegucigalpa, 25 July to 11 August 2022

The UNDP electoral project “Support to the electoral cycle in Honduras for peaceful and transparent elections” 2020 – 2022 (PACE-H), in close cooperation with the National Electoral Council (CNE), the Justice Electoral Tribunal (TJE) and the “Financing, transparency and inspection unit (UFTF), held a lesson learned workshop in March 2022. As a result of this exercise, it was decided to enhance the capacities of the three EMBs using BRIDGE methodology.

The UNDP electoral Project and the three EMBs, with the support of the Governance and Peacebuilding team of the UNDP Regional Center for Latin America and the Caribbean, agreed to design and develop five BRIDGE thematic workshops for representatives of the three EMBs: One workshop on diversity, equity and inclusion and another one on gender and elections for the three institutions, and three workshops, one for each one of the EMBs, on strategic planning. This article refers to the three Strategic Planning workshops.

The three strategic planning workshops were held in Tegucigalpa from 25 to 27 July for the TJE, from 2 to 4 August for the UFTF, and from 9 to 11 August for the CNE.  In spite of the fact that each one of the institutions has a specific role on the elections organization, all three workshops shared common objectives: To revise the institution strategic planning from the point of view of international standards and to take into consideration the results and recommendations of the lessons learned from the 2021 elections´ exercise.

The participants for each one of the workshops are shown in the following chart:

Institution: Tribunal de Justicia Electoral (TJE)

Participants: 30

Men: 11 (37%)

Women: 19 (63%)

Institution: Unidad de Financiamiento, Transparencia y Fiscalización a Partidos Políticos y Candidatos, (UFTF)

Participants: 31

Men: 13 (42%)

Women: 18 (58%)

Institution: Consejo Nacional Electoral, (CNE

Participants: 31

Men: 22 (71%)

Women: 9 (29%)

Total general

Participants: 92

Men: 46 (50%)

Women: 46 (50%)

The face-to-face workshop were design and developed by three BRIDGE accredited facilitators: Gabriela Nones, Isabel Otero and Jorge Guzmán (accrediting facilitator). Wilmer Castañeda conducted the Virtual classroom and the support platform for the workshop. José Luis Segovia y Linda Castro, from the Honduras UNDP office team, were crucial for the logistics and the coordination of the participants. In each one of the workshops a representative of the institution made a presentation of the Institutional Strategic Planning (PEI in Spanish).

The objectives of the workshops (all of them evaluated as achieved) were: to get an overview of the BRIDGE methodology; to discuss on the importance, steps, concepts and methodology of the strategic planning; to present and review the Institutional strategic planning; to review the findings and recommendations of the march 2022 lessons learned exercise; to get familiar with elements and use of the logical framework planning methodology; to familiarize with the risk analysis, monitoring and evaluation matrices; to construct SMART indicators, risk evaluation criteria and mitigation measures; and to promote the networking among the different institutions and units of each institution.

According to BRIDGE methodology, the workshop exercises started either with a short presentation or with compilations of the participants ideas on main concepts, with the presentations of the PEI and lessons learned of each institution (it is important to notice that both, the PEI and the lessons learned results, were known for just few people of the institutions), followed by concrete exercises to review the main elements of the strategic planning and to construct indicators and risk matrices. 

The general evaluations (in contents, methodology and facilitation) of the workshops indicated that the workshops were successful and, more importantly, useful to improve their strategic planning in each one of the institutions. However, the workshops revealed, as well, there is room for improvement when it comes to institutional planning processes, especially in ensuring inclusive participation of staff in planning exercises, developing tools and mechanisms that ensure competition of PEI as well as ensure plans are integrated in the institution day to day activities.