BRIDGE Training Workshop – Bhutan

Report on the conduct of BRIDGE Training Workshop for the Delimitation Assistants from 5 to 14 January 2010 at Phuntsholing, Bhutan.

The second batch of BRIDGE (Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Election) training was conducted for the Delimitation Assistants.  Introduction to Electoral administration and the Boundary Delimitation were conducted for the participants.  The workshops were a success for both by the participants and facilitators.

These BRIDGE modules were conducted independently for the first time by the local facilitators which were a good experience but needed extra endurance for the quality of the training.  The Introduction to Electoral Administration took the participants into a global context, discovering different electoral systems.  Despite the many different methods that are used, the participants learned that the electoral principles remain the same for all electoral systems.

The Boundary Delimitation module was very specific to their job responsibilities, however, they were not clear on many of our specific provisions in the Acts and other guidelines. To address these shortfalls, the workshop has been modified from the original BRIDGE module incorporating all the necessary provisions in our laws to make participants clear with specific provisions. We have also used the expertise of Delimitation Officer and technical team from the National Land Commission who have been working on the delimitation process from the beginning, wherever necessary to substantiate the content and their experiences.

The participants felt that this kind of training would keep them abreast with the updates and changes in our systems while knowledge and content from the global experiences would be an asset to their professional carrier.  Different activities on delimitation module exposed the participants to different stages of delimitation process involving different stakeholders, the important role they have as a field assistant.

Some comments from the BRIDGE participants:

“BRIDGE is enriching and interesting”

“The local facilitators have put on extra effort and the quality of training was of high standard”

“The training is activity based and do not find any one sleeping even after heavy lunch”

The BRIDGE training has been conducted with the constant guidance from the BRIDGE expert from the Australian Electoral Commission.

BRIDGE is a capacity development course for the electoral administrators and with the completion of two successful BRIDGE trainings for our electoral officers, the future consideration on other modules would be very important. The Registration module would be conducted for the electoral registration officers in the next phase of BRIDGE training.

BRIDGE facilitators: Kinley, Tshewang Jamtsho and Kibu Zangpo

EMB Expert presenter: Ugyen Gonphel