“BRIDGE as a broader capacity building tool to help build institutional resilience: reflections from the past and ways forward.”

The BRIDGE Partners were delighted to host our first ever BRIDGE virtual event for the Facilitator Community of Practice which was successfully conducted on 14 February 2024! The event was developed and led by representatives from International IDEA and the AEC. 

The next BRIDGE virtual event will be held in June 2024 and will be developed and led by IFES, UNDP and DPPA. We hope to see you there!

The BRIDGE Secretariat has received many messages of thanks and appreciation celebrating this first event. Reactions so far have been overwhelmingly positive.

An evaluation of this first event is underway, gathering data from participants, presenters, panel members and support staff. Meetings with the delivery team sought their feedback and gleaned their best suggestions for improvements in the future. The BRIDGE Secretariat has recently sent an email to those who registered for the event to ask them to complete a short survey so we can gather feedback. As with all virtual events (especially the first) there were issues which the technical team addressed as best as possible at the time. We are keen to learn from this experience and make any improvements for next time. The BRIDGE Partner’s evaluation strategy will inform the planning for our next virtual event.

The overall theme of this event was “BRIDGE as a broader capacity building tool to help build institutional resilience: reflections from the past and ways forward.”

Congratulations and many and deepest thanks for a job well done to the excellent presenters and panel members including:

• Erik Asplund from International IDEA – BRIDGE Workshop Facilitator – Chair and panel member
• Bel Bennett – AEC – BRIDGE Accrediting Facilitator – Moderator
• Doina Bordeianu – Center for Continuous Electoral Training (CICDE) – BRIDGE Accrediting Facilitator – Presenter and panel member
• Alistair Legge – AEC – BRIDGE Accrediting Facilitator – Presenter and panel member
• Ahmed Amin – League of Arab States – BRIDGE Accrediting Facilitator – Panel member
• Rindai Chipfunde-Vava – Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) – BRIDGE Accrediting Facilitator – Panel member. 

Further sincere thanks go to the behind-the-scenes team including Osama Aljaber – UNDP – BRIDGE Partner technical support, UNDP interpreters, and Mark

Skinner, Astrid Lane and Cate Thompson – AEC – BRIDGE Secretariat support. The high quality administrative, technical and language support provided by this team certainly enhanced the quality of this first gathering.

Following the presentations by the two speakers, Doina and Alistair, participants contributed questions through the chat function in Zoom, and the panel addressed as many of the issues as possible within the limited time available. The questions were diverse and interesting. 

In attendance there were 174 unique participants out of 358 registrants with representatives from approximately eighty countries: a good measure of success.