East African Community (EAC) Organise First BRIDGE TtF- Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
10 March 2017
East African Community (EAC) Organise First BRIDGE TtF
Written by Roselyn Kagaruki and Theo Dowetin
The East African Community (EAC) organised its first BRIDGE Train the Facilitator (TtF) course from 30th January to 10th February 2017, 2017 at the New African Hotel in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It was also the third in the series of BRIDGE election capacity development training that the EAC has conducted for members of the EAC and its Forum of Electoral Commissions thanks to the funding of the European Union (EU) under the Program for the Regional Electoral Support.
Mr. Charles Njoroge, the EAC Deputy Secretary-General, officially opened the TtF course. The objective of the workshop was to build capacities of EMBs in order to facilitate a cascading professional election management training before, during and after elections especially on modules such as polling, counting and results. It also aimed at increasing capacities of EAC Staff to conduct workshops in elections observation.
The EAC BRIDGE TtF capacity building workshop brought together a total number of sixteen (16) participants from Election Management Bodies (EMBs), Office of the Registrar of Political Parties, Officers from the Ministries Responsible for EAC Affairs and Staff from the EAC Secretariat, making participants a good blend of persons with background in government, election administration and political party liaison from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
Participants indicated that they all ended as more confident presenters than before the training and most of all they left with a great treasure of friendship and networking.
Alexandra Hovelacque and Theophilus Dowetin facilitated the course.
BRIDGE TtF workshop was strongly recommended during a BRIDGE Professional Development Training and an exchange visit to Accra, Ghana in May, 2016, which was also organized by the EAC.