5 day Registration workshop in Portuguese – South Africa

As part of its ongoing project in Africa International IDEA organised a 5-day BRIDGE training in Portuguese on “Voter Registration” from 31 October – 4 November 2011 which was held in Pretoria, South Africa.

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”.

The training was the first regional one in the current project that was held in Portuguese for the Lusophone countries. There were 20 participants from election management bodies in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tome & Principe, and Timor Leste who attended the course. The 2 participants from Timor Leste were funded by UNDP’s Pro-PALOP project.

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

• Deryck Fritz, Accrediting facilitator, Consultant
• Zefanias Matsimbe, Workshop facilitator, Consultant
• Elba Pires, Semi-accredited facilitator, CNE Cape Verde
• Helena Garrine, Semi-accredited facilitator, STAE Mozambique
• Helga Marques, Semi-accredited facilitator, Consultant

At the end of the workshop Elba Pires, Helena Garrine and Helga Marques successfully completed their field work component of the accreditation process and were awarded certificates for full Accreditation as BRIDGE facilitators.

The final 5-day agenda is covered the following topics:

• Guiding principles of voter registration;
• Types of voter registers;
• Voter registration procedures;
• Voter registration information management;
• IT in voter registration;
• Vendor presentation and Q&A session;
• Operational planning;
• Stakeholders;
• Voter’s roll audit;
• Sustainability;
• Voter education.

At the opening ceremony held on 31 October 2011 the following were the keynote speakers:

1. Ambassador Mustaq Moorad, Regional Director for Africa, International IDEA

2. Ms Anita Menete – Programme Manager, AusAid, Pretoria