OVERVIEW

Strengthening Civic Engagement in Elections in Afghanistan will work with domestic observation groups to ensure citizen participation and oversight of the electoral process.

Support to domestic observers will increase the likelihood of transparent and fair elections, and if justified, this will increase public confidence in election results, reducing the risk of electoral conflict and instability.

The Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS), including the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, implement the program.

ACTIVITIES

• Training for domestic groups on international standards for election observation, data analysis and presentation, and strategic communications.
• Grants to domestic observation groups to monitor parliamentary and presidential elections, including short-term observation on Election Day, and long-term observation covering voter registration, election preparations, vote counting and tabulation, and electoral dispute resolution.
• Assessment and monitoring of violence against women in elections, particularly violence against female candidates, observers, and poll workers, as well as threats of domestic violence to control the votes of family members.
• Monitoring the accessibility of voting for people with disabilities, including training of disability rights activists to conduct election observation.
• Training for Afghan journalists on issues related to reporting on elections, including legal issues, roles of election stakeholders, principles of election coverage, and corroborating information.
• Engaging youth and local leaders in at-risk areas to observe the integrity of elections.
• Training for candidate agents to improve the integrity of electoral monitoring by candidate and/or political party representatives.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Trained eight civil society organizations to observe the 2018 parliamentary elections, analyze observation results, and report findings to the public and electoral management bodies.
• Fielded 6,500 domestic observers for parliamentary elections, providing reliable and equitably distributed observation throughout the country.
• Conducted post-election reviews of the 2018 parliamentary elections identifying lessons learned and improvements for the 2019 presidential elections.
• All partner observer groups issued a joint statement prior to and following the parliamentary elections, providing a unified voice for civil society highlighting challenges and successes in the elections.