International IDEA organised BRIDGE “Gender” TtF in Pretoria – South Africa
8 September 2011
International IDEA organised a Gender Train-the-Facilitator (TtF) workshop on 22 August to 2 September 2011 in Pretoria, South Africa. What made this particular TtF special was the main focus on the gender dimension. The objective was to conduct a capacity building training for Gender Experts from different organisations in different countries. The participants represented various organisations from Election management bodies, women’s organisations, professional institutions and governments.
The specific objectives of the BRIDGE TtF for gender specialists was:
- To create a pool of BRIDGE facilitators with gender specialisation that can utilise BRIDGE to further the aim of capacity-building on gender and elections in Africa and beyond.
- To create a community of practice in “Gender and Elections” within the BRIDGE network.
- To strengthen the BRIDGE curriculum materials related to gender by having the gender specialist participants develop new BRIDGE materials during the TtF that can be incorporated into the BRIDGE materials
The training workshop followed a typical structure of a TtF workshop. However for the first set of paired activities – participants were allocated an activity from the gender and Elections Module to facilitate. In the second set of paired activities participants were allocated a BRIDGE Module – and were asked to write a gender focused activity related to that module.
The facilitation team comprised of Margot Gould (IDEA) and three consultants, Zefanias Matsimbe, Sibongile Zimemo and Antonia Ngabala.
20 participants from 13 countries participated in the workshop. The countries represented were:
- Malawi
- Lesotho
- Zimbabwe
- Kenya
- Liberia
- Nigeria
- Uganda
- Cameroun
- South Africa
- Nepal
- Netherlands
- Sweden
- France
This was the last of two gender related BRIDGE trainings that IDEA’s Africa programme has organised for 2011. The theme is still so popular and the issues resonate across the globe that more BRIDGE gender trainings will be prioritized for 2012 to support efforts to support ongoing efforts to promote women’s participation in elections in Africa and beyond.