3 May 2011

EGYPT / ELECTION PREPS

UNDP yesterday opened a two-day meeting in Cairo, Egypt, of more than 50 experts from Arab states and from India, Mexico and South Africa to help conduct fair and transparent elections in the Arab States currently undergoing social transformations. UNDP

Posted at: May 3, 2011 4:42 pm

Duration: 02:17

Available in: SD

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STORY: EGYPT / UNDP ELECTION PREPS
TRT: 2.17
SOURCE: UNDP
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 2 MAY 2011, CAIRO, EGYPT

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide shot, meeting venue
2. Pan left, guests
3. Wide shot, Linda McGuire talking to guests
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Linda McGuire, Senior Electoral Advisor, United Nations Development Programme:
"Electoral cycle approach is a long term approach that looks at the timing of electoral assistance engaging over the long term but also with different types of stakeholders. So electro management bodies, also political parties, media, civil society, and I think the reason it can be quite relevant to whats going on in the Arab states region and in transitional context is that it reminds us that the act of voting is important but it takes place within a wider context of democratic governance institutions and processes. And if we don't use a long term approach even in a transitional context we run the risk of just focusing on the event and sort of ignoring how the institutions that come into place during a transition are then democratic, legitimate, credible. So it is important to take a starting point, of course, and to focus on the immediate transitional elections but to really look over the long term at building sustainable strong democratic institutions."
5. Wide shot, meeting
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Ashraf Abdelwahab, Deputy Minister and Acting Minister, Ministry of State for Administrative Development, Arab Republic of Egypt:
"I've worked with UNDP several times and we had a meeting a couple of weeks ago about how UNDP can help with the processes we are doing and I can see different venues where UNDP can help. Political education is one thing another thing is the training of the officials who conduct the elections process itself, we are talking about 150.000 officials all over the country and 16.000 thousand judges who will monitor the elections process. So this type of mass training needs a lot of logistics and mobilization and expertise and I again I can see that UNDP can be very helpful in doing that."
7. Pan right meeting

STORYLINE:

The United Nations Develpoment Programme's (UNDP) yesterday (2 May) opened a two-day meeting in Cairo, Egypt, of more than 50 experts from Arab states and from India, Mexico and South Africa to help conduct fair and transparent elections in the North African and Middle Eastern countries currently undergoing social transformations.

The group, called Community of Practice on Electoral Assistance for the Arab Region, also brings together experts working at national electoral bodies and civil society organizations from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and the occupied Palestinian territory to exchange experiences on how to ensure electoral credibility.

Governance specialists from 13 UNDP country offices in the region also discussed election support programmes with groups such as the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, Al Kawakibi Democracy Transition Center (Tunisia), and The Center for Parliamentary Studies of Cairo University (Egypt).

Participants looked at the importance of broadening electoral assistance to include areas such as legislative reform; independence and professionalism of electoral management bodies; systems to ensure credibility of elections; women's active participation and voter and civic education.

The meeting highlighted examples of cooperation between developing countries and intra-regional cooperation in electoral assistance, particularly from India, Mexico and South Africa, and explored their relevance to the current transition in Arab countries, as well as UNDP's role in promoting such cooperation.