Customised Introduction to electoral administration BRIDGE course for Kenya Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission

A customised BRIDGE course on Introduction to Electoral Administration was supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), basket fund entitled, “Democratic Dividends for Sustainable Transformation in Kenya”. In addition UNDP also collaborated with UN Women and IFES in convening the five days customized BRIDGE training workshop for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). The workshop took place from 24-28 June 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya. The participants were selected from both field and headquarters staff of the IEBC. Additionally, the participants were also staff from the UNDP, UN Women, and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) to deepen their technical expertise in election assistance.

The workshop was facilitated by BRIDGE International facilitators Rindai Chipfunde Vava, and Joachim Baggnan also a BRIDGE facilitator from IEBC John Mwangi. This strategic mix was designed to ensure a broad range of international expertise and local perspectives within the training sessions. A total of 29 participants (18 Females and 11 Males) attended the workshop.

The customized Introduction to Electoral Administration course covered the following Modules:

§ Electoral Administration

§ Gender Equality and Elections

§ Boundary Delimitation

§ Operational Planning

§ Voter Registration

§ Cyber Security and Disinformation

The workshop served as an invaluable opportunity for participants to come together to collectively deepen their understanding, to learn, share experiences, and to build the necessary skills and knowledge to navigate the complexities of advancing democracy. Through collaborative discussions, interactive sessions, and practical exercises, participants were able to understand and unpack critical gender equality strategies, electoral standards, election management guiding principles, types of boundary delimitation and election management bodies and practical exercises in designing an operation plan and a deep dive into Cyber Security and Disinformation module.

Further, participants were conducting daily and final evaluations to assess the content relevancy, informativeness, training methodology, and workload appropriateness. Participants highly praised the content of the workshop, knowledge gained, the interactive training methods, and the facilitators’ skills. Many expressed their interest in applying the skills and knowledge acquired from the workshop when facilitating their own sessions, specifically using the BRIDGE model. Additionally, they showed a strong desire to further expand their knowledge on elections, best practices, and international experiences by organising future and facilitating BRIDGE courses.

During the closing ceremony the course organisers were satisfied that the BRIDGE course met the expected outcomes of the course which strengthened electoral capacity of IEBC staff (and stakeholders) and strengthened coordination and engagement between IEBC and other electoral stakeholders.

After successfully attending, participating in all the activities and fulfilling all tasks given to them, participants were issued with Certificates at the end of the five (5) days’ workshop.