IFES Jordan continues assistance to the IEC Jordan

The IEC Jordan in cooperation with IFES Jordan and with the financial assistance of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is running a long-term professional development program for its staff and stakeholders using the BRIDGE curriculum. Four workshops on Introduction to Electoral Administration were conducted on 12-15 October, 19-22 October, 26-29 October, and 2-5 November, 2015 in Amman, Jordan at Geneva Hotel. In total, 89 participants (out of which 36 were female) from the CSOs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Municipalities, and Ministry of Interior attended the four workshops.

The facilitation team consisted of IFES and IEC facilitators, namely: from the IFES – Natia Kashakashvili (expert) and Katia Madanat (accrediting) and from the IEC – Qais Irshaidat (workshop) and Suheir Rahhal (semi-accredited).

Expert and accrediting level facilitators closely mentored and guided workshop and semi-accredited facilitators to prepare their sessions, to understand the role during the co-facilitation, and to create a strong team-spirit within the facilitation team. The team quickly created a very positive atmosphere and worked very successfully to prepare all the sessions content. As a result of fulfilling all the learning outcomes of the TtF, Suheir Rahhal was moved to the next level category and was accredited as the workshop level facilitator on October 29, 2015.

The facilitation team delivered the sessions according to the Facilitators’ Notes, though some sessions were modified during the workshop progress to meet participants’ interest. The sessions were tailored to Jordanian context and comparative examples from other countries were presented. The participants actively contributed to all activities and showed interest in almost all the topics presented.

Throughout the evaluation participants noted the smooth conduct of session and good division of roles between the facilitation team. In addition, participants expressed their appreciation for the methodology used in the workshop, especially involvement of all participants which is very different from the classic style of the workshops that the ministry employees are used to. Some comments from the written evaluations:

• The workshop is very informative, comprehensive and beneficial; therefore it is important to include more people in future trainings;
• The workshop has improved the knowledge about how elections are managed and detailed the stages of the electoral cycle; after this workshop we can understand the efforts and activities carried out during the preparation phase by the Independent Election Commission of Jordan;
• This workshop gave us opportunity to understand that the processes that we were part of (e.g. Nomination, VR and Polling/Counting) are gradual and interconnected;
• The workshop has improved the understanding of the electoral principles (comprehensiveness, integrity and impartiality); e.g. how to apply impartiality while working in elections and to make integrity the core of the job.
• The workshop has refreshed existing knowledge and enhanced the understanding of electoral concepts and procedures.
• All topics covered are important; it introduces participants to all the different stages of the elections; for some of the participants the information/topics are completely new.

Participants have ascertained importance of such electoral workshops and expressed willingness to participate in the upcoming specialized BRIDGE workshops. At the end of the training, participants received certificates of completion 25 hours of the workshop.

By conducting a total of seventeen workshops since the launch of the long term capacity building program, the total number of participants reaches 366 persons representing the IEC staff, trainers from the IEC pool, officials from the different Ministries and CSOs.