UNDP- NEC collaborate to use BRIDGE for the 2014 voter registration

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Mr. Mallaba giving his speech.

The Director of Elections, Mr Julius Mallaba, informed participants at a training workshop on voter registration that NEC has adopted the BRIDGE methodology to train the trainers for the voter registration process to be conducted by NEC between September and December 2014. Twenty one (21) NEC officials are attending training this week before their deployment to carry out training across the country during July. NEC will appoint and train about 90,000 officials to facilitate the registration of more than 20 million Tanzanians voters later this year. 

BRIDGE stands for Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections, and is an internationally recognised comprehensive modular-based electoral curriculum based on an adult-learning methodology. 

Opening the one-week training for 21 NEC train-the-trainer team in Bagamoyo, Director Mallaba said NEC’s first step towards enhancing its own institutional capacity for effective voter registration this year is to have its staff undertake the BRIDGE training on voter registration. This will help to introduce them to key principles, best practices and comparative experiences in voter registration across the world. 

Participants at the Bridge training.

“Credible voter registration is a key ingredient of free and fair elections. Unless an electoral management body (EMB) has capacity to create and maintain a clean, current and complete voter register, elections are bound to lack integrity, acceptability and legitimacy. We must therefore invest more in training to impart the right values, skills and experiences to our staff in order to guarantee credible electoral outcomes”,  Mallaba said.

He further welcomed the support from the UNDP’s Democratic Empowerment Project (DEP), a multi-donor electoral support project which has supported other BRIDGE training activities for both NEC and ZEC this year.  In May, DEP supported BRIDGE train-the-facilitator for more than 20 EMB staff and the same officials are being given a chance through the current training to become fully accredited BRIDGE facilitators able to support further BRIDGE-related training activities in Tanzania for both the EMBs and other stakeholders.  

Speaking at the same event, the Chief Technical Advisor to DEP, Mr Joram Rukambe, said UNDP welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with NEC in terms of institutional capacity development for the long haul and in preparing for the 2014 voter registration and the 2015 referendum and general elections.  “Good voter registration begets good elections and therefore NEC should do everything possible to ensure a credible and transparent voter registration process in preparing for the 2015 referendum and the general elections”, Rukambe said. 

Brigde training -All participants Group Photo.