The IEC Professional Development Program launched the first set of BRIDGE Intro workshops for Election Officials

IEC Jordan in cooperation with IFES Jordan and with financial assistance of USAID and EU/UNDP implements the professional development program aiming at:

• Developing and implementing professional training programs for the IEC’s permanent staff, temporary staff and stakeholders based on international election education curriculums (such as BRIDGE); and

• Developing a national team of accredited trainers and facilitators specialized in elections, which would be able to use the approved development curriculum without the international assistance and would be considered a source of eligible trainers at national and regional level.

Within the program framework, twenty-two IEC trainers were accredited as semi-accredited BRIDGE facilitators through the “Train the Facilitator” (TtF) workshop during 27^th of May till 7^th of June 2014.

In order to meet another main objective of the Professional Development of the Electoral Staff, Introduction to Electoral Administration workshop was designed to transfer the knowledge on almost all the phases of the Electoral Cycle with the emphasis of International Obligations. The curriculum was updated and Jordanian context reflected within all the sessions.

During September 7 to November 6, 2014 ten Intro workshops (including the Pilot workshop) were conducted targeting participants from the IEC HQ and 45 district electoral field staff; Civil Society representatives were invited in an effort to begin the process of enlarging the pool of Jordanian citizens, particularly women, who are prepared and eligible to work as election officials in future elections .In total the workshops were attended by 210 participants (gender break-down: 72% male, 28% female.

Following facilitators participated in the preparation and conduct of the “Intro” workshops:

1. Natia Kashakashvili – Expert level, IFES Jordan
2. Ossama Kamel – Expert level, IFES Jordan
3. Samar Tarawneh – Workshop level (granted on Sept 25, 2014), IEC Jordan
4. Katia Madanat – Workshop level (granted on Sept 25, 2014), IFES Jordan
5. Naser Habashneh – Workshop level, IFES Jordan
6. Issa Tarawneh – Workshop level (granted on Oct 23, 2014), IEC Jordan
7. Adel Abu Yahia – Workshop level (granted on Oct 30, 2014), IEC Jordan
8. Ali Al Juneidi – Semi-accredited level, IEC Jordan
9. Ziad Salem Al Shukry – Semi-accredited level, IEC Jordan
10. Ahmed Al-Harasis – Semi-accredited level, IEC Jordan

Participants were granted the Certificates of Completion of 25 hours of Introduction to Electoral Administration (in Arabic).

Participants were actively involved in evaluating each topic and helped the facilitation team in assessing the sessions. Participants praised the efforts of the IEC in promoting continuity through the professional development program and noted to have more specialized workshops regarding their functions.

Participants emphasized their appreciation towards the methodology used: effective, interactive, diverse, engaging, innovative – were some of the ways of evaluating the BRIDGE teaching methodology. Generally, participants commended the skills, qualification and knowledge of the facilitators and good communication amongst themselves as well as with the participants.

Major achievement of this set of workshops within the professional development program is that participants, who had only Jordanian elections experience specifically for the period of its conduct, can now understand the whole picture of its preparation, conduct and post-electoral activities.

IEC Jordan is planning to continue the professional development program for the IEC HQ and field staff as well to raise the professionalism of operational trainers through the several educational programs including BRIDGE.