BRIDGE Training in Ramallah Report

The Palestinian Central Elections Commission (CEC) is widely recognized as the most successful electoral authority in the Middle East. The CEC enjoys an unparalleled reputation amongst Palestinian institutions for competence and neutrality. It has implemented two national-level elections under difficult circumstances and despite the application of substantial pressure, including violence and threats of violence. The CEC’s supervision of both elections has been recognized by international observers as exemplary, not only by regional, but also by broader international standards. The peaceful transfer of power after last January’s parliamentary elections owes much to the effectiveness and integrity with which the elections were administered and the trust and respect the CEC commands from all stakeholders.The CEC restructured and reformed after PLC elections in 2006. It continued to build on the successes of the last two elections in order to become a sustainable, permanent institution. Part of this effort is development of in-house continuous education and capacity building system for which BRIDGE project is an excellent tool. IFES and Palestinian CEC are working together on implementing BRIDGE as continuous education system by developing and implementing its foundations, including:

• Developing an appropriate curriculum for BRIDGE training based on CEC needs;
• Training and certification in BRIDGE methodology for up to 20 senior long-term staff members of the CEC, including both headquarter and regional staff members;
• Train-the-Facilitator training for two to four existing staff members to build in-house capacity for training and certification of CEC staff.

This joint project between IFES and CEC aims at delivering a series of BRIDGE workshops covering several modules that both parties esteem their relevance to the CEC staff. These modules are:

• Voter Registration
• Electoral Systems
• Boundary Delimitation
• Electoral Technology
• Electoral Security
• External Voting

The first workshop took place in Ramallah from April 6 – 10, 2008. It covered the Voter Registration and electoral Systems modules. Dr. Hanna Nasir, CEC’s Chairman opened the training and attended few sessions.

The training workshop followed an ‘ABRIDGE’ model of 5-day training workshop. The training topics were carefully chosen with special attention to Palestine specific context.

The material used for this workshop was mainly based on the Bridge version 2 modules of voter registration and electoral systems. Both modules were translated to Arabic either entirely or in part. Suhair Abdeen and Khalil Hallaq (workshop facilitators from the CEC) played a very crucial role in preparing and adapting the material.

In addition to the Bridge materials, the facilitators produced new materials for new activities as well as background materials covering some of the course topics. The participants folder included as well the following attachments:

1. The Basic Palestinian Law with its amendments
2. UN Human Rights and Elections Handbook
3. Other valuable resources and references made available to the participants included IDEA handbook on Electoral Systems Design, NDI’s Building Confidence in the Voter Registration Process, both in Arabic.

Twenty three participants representing CEC’s headquarters and regional offices participated in the 5 day training course.Five of the twenty three participants were women. Four participants came from Gaza’s regional office. Their participation was made possible thanks to the efforts of Cara Stern and Fuad Salman of USAID WB/G Mission and Vladimir Pran, IFES WB/Gaza Country Director.

The Facilitation Team

1. Ossama Kamel – IFES, lead facilitator
2. Khalil Hallaq – Palestinian CEC, fully accredited BRIDGE facilitator
3. Suhair Abdeen – Palestinian CEC, semi-accredited BRIDGE facilitator

Both Suhair and Khalil were outstanding; they were prepared to work for long hours and week-ends in preparation of the workshop. They proved to be a dedicated, professional and harmonious team.Both showed high level of facilitation skills. Suhair Abdeen was fully accredited at the end of this workshop. She proved to be an excellent facilitator and will be with Khalil Hallaq an important pillar for BRIDGE within the CEC.

Daily and final workshop evaluations were extremely positive. Most of the participants confirmed their benefit from this training and demanded more similar trainings for a bigger audience within the CEC. The following is an excerpt from the participants feedback on the training:

• Identify new methods of training and excellent information pertaining to elections
• I learnt about the different elections systems throughout the world, different electoral experiences and the international criteria of elections
• Had a quality of time with our colleagues
• It was fruitful and useful to present the forms and types of registration in details for the CEC employees and the trainers were successful in presenting and clarifying the details and information
• The level of training was very advanced and the trainers were creative
• hold more training courses which improve the trainees level and enrich the trainers experiences
• CEC employees who did not attend this training should attend future ones.
• The training was excellent and the used methods were satisfactory for the participants
• The training was excellent but there were some activities that needed more time especially relating to the elections systems
• Conduct complimentary training courses for all the topics relating to elections process
• To have training with employees of elections committees from different countries to exchange skills and experiences
• Conduct this training on annual basis and include all the employees especially the newly recruited to know more about the fundamentals of the elections and to add more topics related to the other details of the elections
• The training course came in the right time; no elections process and the employees were bored and the colleagues were so occupied with projects related to social awareness and education; thus, this course was a great opportunity to evaluate our ability to interact as a team and colleagues.