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Toolkits
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EISA launches a digital toolkit on civic and voter education in Africa
EISA is launching its first ever E-toolkit on civic and voter education in Africa in recognition of the importance of civic participation in any democracy.
The toolkit is a growing resource for the planning, execution, and evaluation of civic and voter education initiatives.
Registered users will access relevant resources for free in the CVElog, a searchable online repository of civic and voter education materials from around Africa and beyond.
Users will also have access to a guide on voter education programme development as well as a set of practical and customisable tools contained in the interactive toolbox.
The E-toolkit is also accessible to users equipped with visual aids. The digital resource is available in English, French and Portuguese at the Live link https://www.eisacvetoolkit.org. A tutorial video is also available on the landing page.
Online Integrity Tool
EISA’s Online Integrity Tool seeks to enable observer groups to conduct a qualitative assessment of the different elements of the electoral cycle as a basis for developing a balanced and comprehensive assessment of an electoral process.
This is because, in the course of its electoral support work, EISA recognised discrepancies in the quality of assessments undertaken by different observer groups and variations among regional and sub-regional election assessment instruments.
The toolkit was initially designed to support the Africa Union as well as other regional communities in their efforts to promote democracy on the African continent through election and assessment initiatives. To this end, this has led EISA to develop an election integrity assessment scorecard that seeks to:
- Further contribute to improving electoral democracy strengthening in Africa.
- Enable observer groups to analyse all aspects of the electoral cycle.
- Enable observer groups to make and issue a balanced qualitative assessment of the integrity of a given electoral process.
The toolkit does this by:
- Providing a checklist on election with several components.
- Providing the basis for developing a balanced qualitative overall assessment of an electoral process.
- Providing the qualitative scoring of the different elements of the electoral cycle.
- Automatically calculating the integrity of an electoral process using formulas but based on international standards for credible elections.
- Building knowledge on electoral processes and as well as popularising international and regional standard for democratic elections
The toolkit was piloted for use during EISA’s Technical Assessment Mission in Zambia’s 2021 General elections and was again used by EISA’s Election Observation Mission for The Gambia’s Presidential elections in December of that year.
APRM Toolkit
The idea of an interactive, CD-ROM based toolkit for civil society organizations was first conceived at a meeting of members of the Southern African Integration Network (SAINET) in Nairobi, Kenya in September 2005. Through the generous support of the Ford Foundation Special Initiative for Africa (SIA), the Development Policy Management Forum (DPMF) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), this toolkit is made available to any civil society organization interested in or engaging with the African Peer Review Mechanism.
The APRM initiative offers civil society organizations one of the best opportunities for engagement with national governments and pan-African structures since the achievement of independence from colonial rule. However, major constraints limiting the effective engagement and participation of civil society organizations (in both an organized and informal sense) include: a critical shortage of factual, concise and easy to use information regarding the APRM’s purpose, functions and means whereby civil society can engage with the mechanism at a national level.
The APRM offers one of the most significant opportunities ever witnessed on the African continent for ordinary citizens to engage directly with a process which feeds into national governance strategies and processes. The success or failure of the initiative will depend to a large extent on the effectiveness of the engagement between African governments, the private sector and civil society groups and individuals. This toolkit aims at providing key stakeholders in civil society with an aid to achieving this vital objective.
