Network of Electoral Commissions of ECOWAS to Meet in Abuja to Adopt Best Practice for Election Management

22 October 2012
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Economic Community of West African States (Abuja)
press release

Abuja - Nigeria — Chairmen and Vice Chairmen of Election Commissions of ECOWAS Member States are meeting in Abuja from 23rd October 2012 to review the conduct of elections in West Africa and propose additional measures for improving their management in the spirit of the campaign by the Community to entrench democratic culture in the region.

They will be joined by high ranking Experts in electoral matters, officials of International Institutions that support Democracy, the Media and the ECOWAS technical staff responsible for elections during the two day meeting which will specifically seek to learn lessons from the elections held in 2011 and ways to enhance transparency and credibility in the electoral process. Between the end of 2010 and November 2011, elections were held in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger, Benin, Nigeria, Cape Verde, Liberia, the Gambia and Senegal in March 2012.

Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Sierra Leone and Ghana are scheduled to hold elections between 2012 and 2013. Participants will also examine the role of the electoral Commissions and their credibility in the process, the issue of electoral disputes and the mechanism for their resolution, the reaction of political parties during post election crisis and the contribution of civil society and observers to improving election management.

The meeting, which is being sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), is being held under the aegis of the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commission (ECONEC) which was established in February 2008 in Conakry not only to facilitate ECOWAS assistance to Member States but also to serve as a regional platform for exchange of best practices and enhance the capacities of the electoral commissions of Member States.

Participants are expected to update and improve the internal regulations of the network; set up a bureau to coordinate its functions; highlight best practices in the management of elections; adopt a two year work plan for the network and discuss specific challenges in election management and ways of resolving them They will also establish a mechanism for improving cooperation between ECOWAS and the National Electoral Commissions, review the activities of the network since its establishment and examine the role of E Registration in election management in the region.

Read the original article on Ecowas.

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