Democratic Governance
Global Practice Meeting on Electoral Systems and Processes

About the Workshop

Rationale

In an effort to provide more substantive policy support to programme countries, capture significant experience and expertise based on UNDP activities worldwide, and synthesize knowledge and maximize its use across the organization, UNDP has adopted the practice architecture. Practices bring people from different regions and offices together into voluntary, flexible communities, based on common professional interest, so that they can share and learn from each other's knowledge and experience and develop new ideas. They include a wide range of organizational functions such as knowledge management, advocacy, partnership building, and professional development.

The service line of electoral systems and processes corresponds to a “sub”-practice of the democratic governance practice. Sub-practices are specializations within a practice and are embodied by a working group of professionals who share information, resources and comparative experiences, develop new policy strategies and organize technical events or workshops. The Practice Note on Electoral Systems and Processes to a certain extent helped to launch the sub-practice within UNDP, but more needs to be done to harness the considerable knowledge and expertise that exist within UNDP, to strengthen practice linkages with partners and to chart a course for the future. With the number of countries in which UNDP is asked to provide electoral assistance increasing, a global meeting is being planned for the last quarter of 2004 to bring together for the first time ever the UNDP practitioners working in electoral assistance along with external partners and recognized expert practitioners in the field.

Objectives

The objectives of the Practice Meeting are to:

1. Bring together UNDP practitioners in the service line (from country offices, electoral assistance projects, SURFs and headquarters) in combination with a limited number of senior external practitioners and partners to build the community of practice, strengthen its interaction as a global community, build on external and intra-UN networks and position UNDP as a leader in the area of electoral assistance;

2. Delve into the substance of UNDP's entry points, on the one hand, and the state of the art in electoral assistance, on the other, and identify the implications of the latter for the former (discussions will be guided by, but not limited to, the Practice Note on Electoral Systems and Processes);

3. Derive a set of common community, policy and practical needs and encapsulate them in an action plan that addresses them (this would focus on next steps in building the community, on developing the practical tools that inter alia strengthen UNDP’s capacity to implement electoral assistance, and on guidance that are needed for UNDP practitioners to do their jobs better); and

4. Test the concepts and approach of a global programme on electoral systems and processes that focuses on knowledge networking; capacity building—both internal and external—for long-term electoral assistance; and innovative partnerships and research.

Expected Results

1. Practice Issues: broadened vision of UNDP practitioners in electoral systems and processes and greater capacity to provide policy advice and broker knowledge, definition of a set of best practices and a confirmation or eventually revisiting of the current Practice Note based on practical experiences in country offices.

2. State of the Art and Trends: understanding of the current state of the art and identification of niche areas for UNDP which would set our agenda in building the practice and drive the knowledge management strategy for electoral support.

3. Implications of building the practice: enhanced community—what it means, how to do it, how to sustain it, to what ends; establishment of an agenda for future actions which could include the development of toolkits, primers, global or regional comparative research paper or guidance notes on particular issues, documentation of some best practices etc. The agenda should define a task sharing among practitioners as we are building the community as a whole (but also tap into external expertise for certain priority areas). The meeting should also lead to an enrichment of the currently available global/regional knowledge base on the workspace/intranet.

Programme
Considering the objectives and expected results outlined above, it is proposed that the meeting consist of three parts that are intended to build upon each other in a cumulative sense (note, however, that subsequent discussions among the organizers and participant availability are expected to further develop/impact the agenda and its flow). The theme of what it means to become a community of practice, and how to make this happen, will be mainstreamed throughout the entire meeting:

• Electoral Systems and Processes in Practice (1.5 days): One part of the meeting will focus on Electoral Systems and Processes in practice. The Practice Note on Electoral Systems and Processes will serve as a guide to the discussion topics, although additional topic areas can certainly be addressed. This component should on the one hand explore the substantive areas addressed in the Practice Note but then be as country and project specific as possible in order to highlight UNDP’s niche in electoral assistance, enduring challenges, strategies that work and do not work in practice, and gaps that need to be further addressed. This first component is intended to take stock of where we have been as a sub-practice based on experience and where we are headed.

• State of the Art and Trends in Electoral Systems and Processes (1 day): A second part of the meeting will widen the discussion beyond UNDP’s horizons to address the cutting-edge issues and challenges in electoral systems and processes as presented by senior experts and officials in the field. This second component is intended to focus on the state of the art in electoral systems and processes, but to also look forward to anticipate new areas of demand and strategies for addressing them.

• Implications for Building the Practice (1.5 days): A third component of the meeting will look at the implications of the first two components and endeavour to identify practical steps that need to be taken in order to further strengthen the electoral systems and processes sub-practice in UNDP and as it relates to partners. This component of the meeting is intended to focus on the future of the practice and where it needs to go in order to grow and become more relevant globally and within UNDP but it should also derive a practical action plan inclusive of tools and guidance that practitioners need in order to deliver on their day-to-day electoral assistance initiatives.

These three components are not intended to be stand-alone or airtight. It is expected, for example, that implications for building the practice will be addressed to a certain extent in the first and second components, the state of the art will be addressed in the first component, and so on. Rather, these dimensions are intended as a starting point to help begin organizing the substance and flow of the agenda. Time for the opening and closing sessions will of course also take up part of the four-day agenda.

Participants

In order to encourage participation and promote a close community-of-practice environment in the meeting, participation will be limited to a maximum of approximately 63 participants. These will include an appropriate mix of UNDP field-based practitioners in Electoral Systems and Processes and headquarters colleagues, as well as a balance between internal and external members of the sub-practice, and regional representation. More specifically, UNDP participants will include UNDP country office National Programme Officers, Assistant Resident Representatives and/or Deputy Resident Representatives as appropriate; selected Chief and Senior Technical Advisors from UNDP-funded electoral assistance projects; interested Resident Representatives; SURF advisors; and headquarters advisers. An effort will be made to ensure that at least half of the participants are based in the field and that there is a good mix of representatives from country contexts in terms of timeline and typology of elections, with some representing long-standing UNDP assistance and others representing newer initiatives.

External participants will include keynote speakers who are senior electoral officials, leading academics and/or practitioners in the field, and will also reflect the breadth and depth of UNDP’s partnerships in the service line. Both established and potential partners of UNDP will be invited to participate in the entire meeting, including the Electoral Assistance Division of the UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA/EAD); the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), Elections Canada, the Instituto Federal Electoral of Mexico, the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), UNDESA and UNV.

Venue and Logistics

The venue of the meeting will be The New World Renaissance Hotel in Manila, Philippines. Logistical support will be provided by the main partner on the ground, namely, the UNDP Philippines country office. Please see the Logistics, Travel and Security Advisories for more information.

Pre-Meeting Planning and Meeting Facilitation

Based on the lessons learned from the recent Global Practice meeting on Public Administration Reform, held in April 2004 in Bratislava, the Electoral Systems and Processes meeting has adopted two approaches used effectively in that meeting. The first is to establish a preparatory team of professionals (“PreCom”) who are in the process of undertaking the programme design, event planning and management of the event. The team comprises representatives from the Democratic Governance Group at headquarters, SURFs, country offices and project staff. A representative of the Philippines country office is also on the team, as is a representative of the Asia-Pacific Bureau. The second approach is to establish a co-facilitation team comprised of a number of people who can improve the capture of lessons and the conduct of the meeting. The co-facilitation team will be led by an external facilitator who, with the assistance of a larger team, will help guide discussions and ensure that the meeting and session objectives are being met.

Notwithstanding the above, the agenda will be developed and finalized through a consultative process involving the invitees and confirmed participants in the meeting. The summaries of those inputs will be incorporated into the agenda and participants’ roles in the meeting further defined on that basis between mid-September and late October.