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ECES has had several occasions to show the developments and outcomes of the alliance with the African Union (AU) and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

PRO-ELECTORAL INTEGRITY aims at contributing to peace and security through the development of a common culture of resilience and shared values around integrity in electoral processes, by strengthening the capacities of African EMBs in conducting free, fair, credible, inclusive and violence-free elections. In that sense, the project seeks to respond to the needs and priorities of the AU in the electoral field ahead of 2022 and 2023 which are busy electoral years in Africa, with several major elections in Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroun, Cabo Verde, Lesotho, among others, and preparations in several transitioning countries that experienced extra-constitutional changes in the last years such as Burkina Faso, Chad, Sudan, Mali and Guinea.

 

The project started with the first phase of 12 months. Particularly, the project aims at implementing the following actions to achieve the overall objective stated above:

 

  • The revival of the AAEA will be key to disseminating a common vision and sharing best practices in conducting integer elections across the continent. After the support to the relaunch of its Executive Committee in May in Accra, the African Union will support the holding of its General Assembly in November 2022, with the organization of the 7th annual continental forum of EMBs on “Building resilience of the EMBs to safeguard Democracy in Africa”. Beyond the promotion of a common culture of prevention of electoral violence the success of this upcoming event will help build a community of EMB leaders who share common values, jointly work towards the consolidation of integrity in elections and support each other, especially when facing challenges related to their offices.

 

  • The African Union intends to conduct two Needs Assessment Missions in the context of the Transitions in the Guinean Republic and in Burkina Faso. These two missions will identify areas of support that will be needed in the two States to succeed in their transition and in the holding of elections, helping the AU to design an ad hoc technical assistance project, contributing to building their capacities to run free, fair, credible, inclusive, violent free and acceptable elections in the context of a post-coup transition.

 

  • The project supported the African Union in implementing the long-term strategy: Road map in the promotion of the African Charter on Democracy, Election and Governance through education institutions. The activity offers the occasion to review and adopt the roadmap as well as the training material tools that will be disseminated through Pilot Projects in specific countries covering specific thematic areas. It is the “ACDEG School Curriculum Project” that is part of this effort aiming to entrench the culture of democracy, good governance as well for the respect of rule of law and human rights within the future generation in line with the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and governance and as part of the implementation of the African Union Agenda 2063.

 

  • Support the African Union in the implementation of the following workshops:  the workshop on the "African Union guidelines on Constitutional Amendments" and the 6th edition of the African Transnational Justice Forum titled "The state of transnational justice in Africa: Transnational Justice and Social Capital in Africa" 

 

The technical support of ECES to the African Union on the activities mentioned above is critical through project management and electoral expertise. It is rooted in the framework of the joint MoU.

 

Indeed, the MoU is aimed at consolidating the AU’s efforts in the areas of election integrity, prevention of electoral conflicts, human rights and women's political participation, elements which correspond in all respects to the objectives of the EU’s Comprehensive Strategy with Africa, as a partnership for peace, security, governance and resilience between the two continents (Joint Communication of the European Commission, 9 May 2020) as well as to the priorities of the EU provided for in the European Parliament Resolution on a new Africa strategy of 25th March 2021.