Election Management Design Workshops in Lebanon

IFES’ project ‘Support to the Electoral Process in Lebanon’ (funded by USAID) organized BRIDGE workshops on Election Management Design to discuss the issues relating to various EMB options and its potential reform in Lebanon.

The first workshop was conducted for the 22 Electoral Officials from the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities during November 30-December 3, 2011 and second for the 16 CSOs representatives during December 7-9, 2011 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon.

The workshops were be facilitated by the expert facilitators Emad Yousuf and Natia Kashakashvili together with the workshop facilitators Marie-Louise Ramy and Mirna Shidrawi. The second workshop was boosted up by workshop facilitator Said Sanadiki and semi-accredited facilitator Jean Hanna (who completed the accreditation as the workshop facilitator).

The workshop agenda focused on the legal framework of the EMBs, models of the EMBs, its structures, functions, membership, as well as Codes of Conduct, EMB Sustainability and the Electoral reform.

The elections in Lebanon is administered by the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities; therefore the topics presented were extremely interesting for the participants. The workshop participants found the activities a bit complicated at the beginning, but later they have come up with the best scenarios of the possible EMB structures in Lebanon.

Participants evaluated the workshop as very beneficial and expressed the willingness and interest to further increase their knowledge on Elections via the BRIDGE workshops. The recommended topic for the next workshops in Lebanon could be the Voter Registration and the TtF for the Civil Society Organizations.