The Electoral Support Project (ESP): Institutional Strengthening and Professional Development Support for the Election Commission of Nepal

The Election Commission is an autonomous constitutional body mandated to organize and deliver credible local and national elections in Nepal. Since 1990 the commission has run four general elections (1991, 1994, 1999 and 2008) and two local elections (1992 and 1997). These have been well run within the constraints of the limited financial and human resources.

For each of these elections the commission received substantial donor support, including for the 2008 elections where the Nepal Peace Trust Fund (NPTF) funded a nationwide voter education programme, training for election officials and the deployment of polling officials on election day. Also, UNDP, with funding from the United Nations Peace Trust Fund (UNPTF), assisted the commission to establish an Electoral Observation Resource Centre to manage the many local and international election observers.

However, long term support for building up the capacity of the Election Commission has been lacking as almost all support has gone to holding individual elections. UNDP's focus internationally is now shifting to providing longer-term support delivered in the periods between elections.

The Electoral Support Project (ESP) aims to build up the capacity of the Election Commission to efficiently hold participatory, peaceful and credible elections. It is a new kind of initiative developed to provide the Election Commission sustainable and enduring institutional and professional support in line with the electoral cycle approach.

Although the commission was widely praised for the way it ran the April 2008 constituent assembly elections, a review identified a number of ways in which the commission and the overall system for holding elections could be strengthened. The main need is for the commission to move from working in a reactive way around individual elections to more proactively addressing the challenges it faces over the medium term. Another need is for the Election Commission to develop an institutional memory based on its experiences of running previous elections — as experienced staff often move on to other government agencies. The project will address both of these challenges towards the improved management of elections alongside initiatives to increase democratic awareness and voters' participation.

Following the UN electoral needs assessment and the mid-term review of the Election Commission’s five year strategic plan (2009-2013), the need increased to revise and extend project further in order to respond to the current requirements of the Election Commission. With these revisions, the Phase II of the Electoral Support Project is designed to extend support to the ECN till 2016 providing technical assistance with electoral preparations during the series of upcoming national and local elections and continuing to strengthen capacity of ECN in other areas.

Project objectives and activities

Institutional strengthening — Strengthening the capacity of the Election Commission to administer elections by supporting it to:

• produce a strategic plan for its development;
• modernise the voter registration system;
• produce a GIS-based mapping system for showing polling stations and other key locations to enable election logistics and planning;
• develop the system for dealing with election-related disputes; and
• learn from experiences in other countries with relevant electoral processes and systems.

Professional development — Build up the skills of Election Commission staff by running a BRIDGE (Building Resources in Democracy Governance and Elections) training programme and other professional development initiatives for them. Democratic participation — Improve the understanding amongst the general public about the importance of participating in the democratic process — especially amongst women and marginalized groups — by supporting the commission to:

• run a continuous voter education and outreach programme; and
• set up an electoral education and information centre for the general public on the commission's premises.

The project is being implemented by UNDP in partnership with the Election Commission.