A BRIDGE TtF in Accra, Ghana

As part of its ongoing project in Africa, International IDEA organised a 10-day BRIDGE Train the Facilitator Workshop in French from 14-25 November 2011, which was held in Accra, Ghana.

AusAID through its Africa Governance Fund is funding the IDEA project “BRIDGE Capacity-Building Training for Election Management Bodies in Africa: Support to the IDEA – African Union Joint Activity Plan 2011 – 2013”.

There were twenty seven participants from election management bodies in African countries, Comoros, Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Italy, Benin, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad and Senegal as well as a representative from La Francophonie attended the Train the Facilitators course.

The Bridge facilitating team which prepared and delivered the course comprised of:

• Ibrahima Amadou Niang, Expert facilitator, Gorée Institute

• Véronique Idiema Kando, Workshop facilitator, CENI Burkina Faso

• Pauline Adobea Dadzawa, Workshop facilitator, EC Ghana

• Ibrahima Sona Diallo, Semi-accredited facilitator, USAID Guinea

At the opening ceremony held on Monday 14 November 2011 there were two speakers representing the project organisers IDEA and the Australian High Commission in Ghana

The speakers were:

1. Mr Theophilus Dowetin, West Africa Programme Manager, International IDEA

2. Mr Samuel Allen, Third Secretary– Australian High Commission Ghana

The course piloted a lot of the newly translated materials and the consensus from both the facilitators and the participants was that the translation is of good quality.