United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The past 20 years have seen a rapid increase in the number of democratic states. As a result, the number of elections worldwide has increased dramatically. Initially the international community tended to deal with requests for electoral assistance by deploying large numbers of “electoral experts” who played a very “hands on” role in running the elections concerned. There was at that time very little emphasis placed on building the capacity of local electoral staff. This had potentially deleterious implications for the independence and sovereignty of the recipient countries
The experts were asked to reflect on everything, which, with the benefit of hindsight, they wished they had known when starting work on their first election. The knowledge, skills and values they identified formed the basis for what has become the BRIDGE curriculum. At the time no comprehensive curriculum for electoral administrators existed anywhere in the world.
The need for such a curriculum was also recognised in 2000 by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). It was on that mission that, for the first time, the UN established a Capacity Building Section as part of an Independent Electoral Commission. The AEC and UNTAET worked together to use the earliest modules of BRIDGE as a vital supporting element in that approach. Since that mission, capacity development has been a much more central plank of UN electoral assistance missions and BRIDGE has been included in dozens of the electoral mission plans of both UNDP and UNEAD including Georgia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Bhutan and Nepal.
The project filled a substantial need for an appropriate mechanism to build the skills, attitudes and capacity of the large numbers of officials worldwide who were being asked, with minimal prior training or experience, to run free and fair elections in new or transitional democracies. To date, BRIDGE modules have been conducted for more than 4000 current or potential electoral administrators around the world.
Please see BRIDGE website for more detail: www.bridge-project.org

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
There are two guiding questions that inform all of the decisions made in the development and facilitation of BRIDGE programs. These are: • Are we improving electoral processes? • Are we strengthening the confidence and competence of key stakeholders? The short term indicators used to track BRIDGE’s success are the level of satisfaction shown in participant evaluations, and the number of work plan undertakings completed. The indicators selected for the long-term include the following. • A values and ethics based approach to all aspects of its work is adopted by the Electoral Management Body (EMB) • Professional development is a higher corporate priority inside the institution, reflected in human resource practices. • A BRIDGE-like active learning approach is incorporated into a training regime making use of fully customized resources informed by the original BRIDGE materials. • The morale of staff, institutional pride, and commitment to the values of democratic electoral processes is thriving. • The performance of the institution in delivering certain elections-related functions that were the focus of the BRIDGE workshops has improved. • Increased understanding of broader issues of sustainability within the institution. The improved state of relations between stakeholders brought together in BRIDGE workshops serves as an enabling factor for credible electoral processes. • An improved policy framework is in place in specific areas corresponding to the focus of the BRIDGE program. Other indicators used by the partners to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the project are: • The take-up rate: The calendar for 2009 indicates that already there have been no fewer than 35 workshops conducted in 22 countries including Tonga, Palestine, Nepal, Afghanistan, Ghana, Angola, Senegal, Timor Leste, Indonesia, Egypt, USA, Jordan, Fiji, Vanuatu, Philippines, Colombia, Federated States of Micronesia, Georgia, Bhutan, Yemen, Pakistan and Australia. • The number of repeat uses of BRIDGE by clients: Of those countries using BRIDGE this year, 14 are repeat users. • The number of times BRIDGE was built into the capacity development plans of organisations such as the UN and AusAID: Currently BRIDGE is built in to almost all of the current Electoral Assistance plans of UNDP. It is built in to many of the current plans of IFES including Pakistan and Jordan. It is currently built into many AusAID programs including Timor Leste, Indonesia and Solomon Islands. • The level of demand for the Train the Faciltator (TTF) program: So far this year, there have been BRIDGE TTFs conducted in Ghana, Georgia, Jordan, Brussels, Peru, South Africa and Nepal, training some 150 potential BRIDGE facilitators. Currently there are more than 250 fully accredited facilitators on the Database and almost double that awaiting the opportunity to complete their accreditation. • The number of hits on the BRIDGE Website. There have been approximately 1.5 million hits on the website in 2009. The BRIDGE partners – in line with the Paris Declaration 2005 on Aid Effectiveness - have been instrumental in reducing the amount of duplication and competition in the field of electoral assistance.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
In December 1999, at the invitation of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), a group of prominent electoral experts from around the world (the “Expert Advisory Group” or “EAG”) met in Canberra, to discuss the potential structure and content of a short capacity-building program for electoral administrators. BRIDGE was developed and is implemented for the global good. The AEC’s BRIDGE partners are the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division (UNEAD). The AEC, as lead agency, has funded a permanent BRIDGE office in Melbourne since the inception of the project. The curriculum framework for BRIDGE Version 1 was informed (as a starting point) by the members of the original EAG, but they could only represent their own particular experiences, substantial as they were. From the moment BRIDGE was first conducted in East Timor (in 2001), all BRIDGE implementers and facilitators have been tasked with seeking out new examples and activities that can be used in the BRIDGE curriculum. Examples of best practice and alternative approaches in election management have been collected from all over the world. This has given BRIDGE Version 2 a richness and depth that is even better equipped to meet the needs of clients. Regional BRIDGE Expert Advisory Groups are also employed to ensure “buy in” and a sense of ownership. These are representative groups made up of key decision makers in the client groups. They help to ensure that client groups have input at every stage of BRIDGE programs. An example of such a group is the Pacific Island, Australia and New Zealand Electoral Administrators’ (PIANZEA) Network’s advisory group that selects modules it thinks are most appropriate to the network, nominates trainees for TTFs, and helps to customise workshops by providing materials and examples from the Pacific context. There have been more that 50 contributors to the BRIDGE curriculum from all over the world. They come from diverse cultural, linguistic and electoral backgrounds. On a day-to-day basis, general queries and requests for support are dealt with through a BRIDGE office email address (projectoffice@bridge-project.org). All BRIDGE office staff are copied in to any request coming through this address and there are protocols in place to ensure that there is no “doubling up” on answers and that no query goes unanswered. The original intended target groups for BRIDGE were Election Commissioners and EMB personnel, particularly in post conflict and developing democracies. However, such has been the success and appeal of BRIDGE that the audience has broadened to include political parties, parliamentarians, civil society organisations, election observers (international and domestic), members of the media and security forces. BRIDGE has also been taken up by the AEC as part of its induction and internal professional development programs and other established EMBs such as Elections Canada have been exploring BRIDGE’s potential application for their staff development programs.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
From its inception, BRIDGE has been a world leader in professional development for stakeholders in electoral processes and has at its heart a “change management” approach. The BRIDGE methodology, based on participatory, adult learning principles, is revolutionary in electoral capacity development. BRIDGE changed the focus of electoral capacity development by describing and treating electoral administrators as professionals. This means that the curriculum does not simply expect rote learning of electoral law and procedures. Rather, it engages participants in dialogue about the importance of their role in promoting and maintaining democratic processes. While recognising the importance of skills and knowledge, BRIDGE places ethical principles at its core and challenges all stakeholders to measure their actions against these principles. In short, BRIDGE has as one of its main goals supporting attitudinal change, something that has not been attempted on so large and systematic a scale in the electoral world before. Consideration of the use of BRIDGE may be prompted in a number of ways. A general request, not making specific mention of BRIDGE, may be received for electoral assistance or staff capacity development. In some cases a donor or BRIDGE partner will conduct a broad country-based assessment and may consider the option of using BRIDGE as part of an electoral assistance package. Over a series of exploratory discussions, a consensus may develop between clients, donor organisations and electoral experts that the use of BRIDGE may be appropriate. As BRIDGE has become more widely known, specific explicit requests for the conduct of BRIDGE courses are increasingly being received. Regardless of the type of request, a needs assessment is carried out in close consultation with the client group and a program is developed to meet the specific needs identified. To date, BRIDGE workshops have been conducted in more than 40 countries for more than 4000 participants and in numerous languages including French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Pashto, Nepalese and Indonesian. All BRIDGE programs are demand driven and planned, developed and implemented in partnership with each discrete client group. The original objectives of the BRIDGE Project were therefore to: • promote internationally accepted principles of democracy and good electoral practice; • enhance the skills and confidence of stakeholders in the electoral process; • increase the awareness of tools and resources available for the building and maintaining of a sustainable electoral culture; and • develop a support network for stakeholders in electoral processes and encourage a culture of sharing As with all effective, long-term projects, the BRIDGE implementation strategy has evolved based on lessons learned, client feedback and partner input. The experience of running BRIDGE programs has confirmed that achieving the best possible outcomes requires extensive consultation, detailed planning, meticulous preparation, systematic implementation with an eye to sustainability, and careful evaluation. For this reason a BRIDGE Implementation Manual has been designed to address these issues. The Implementation Manual is a reference tool for BRIDGE partners and BRIDGE implementing organisations and facilitators.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The BRIDGE implementation strategy as outlined in the Implementation manual can be briefly summarised as follows: • identifying needs and broad objectives and carefully considering whether BRIDGE is an appropriate tool for addressing these; • formulating and adopting a grass-roots strategy and plan for training, in consultation with the key stakeholders; • ensuring that the plan is driven by a local agenda, with stakeholders defining their own needs; • identifying program objectives through consultation and contextualisation; • thoughtfully and appropriately designing a program; • considering an evaluation framework; • undertaking comprehensive logistic planning; • executing the program in a well-organised way; • undertaking a well-planned and useful evaluation; • generating clear reporting and documentation; and • pursuing strategies for sustaining the program and its impacts, for example by creating an internalised professional development strategy so local trainers can sustain BRIDGE and passing ownership to the client organisation at the completion of the program. A great deal of consideration has also been given to the setting of standards for the implementation of BRIDGE programs so as to ensure the maintenance of BRIDGE’s integrity, and achieve the highest possible client satisfaction. To that end, the following agreed rules and guidelines for the implementation of BRIDGE have been developed by the partners. 1. BRIDGE implementers must advise the BRIDGE Office, as soon as they can legitimately do so, of forthcoming BRIDGE activities. 2. BRIDGE workshops must be conducted by accredited facilitators. The BRIDGE facilitation process has been designed to ensure that facilitators have an in depth understanding of the BRIDGE content and methodologies. This is to ensure quality of outcomes and consistency of approach in the delivery of BRIDGE training. 3. Those workshops and programs calling themselves BRIDGE must acknowledge the BRIDGE partners. Part of the strength and credibility of BRIDGE comes from the partnership, therefore it is important to give due recognition. 4. Copyright of the BRIDGE materials must be respected. In this context, it must be emphasised that the translation of materials does not change the underlying intellectual property. 5. BRIDGE partners may arrange translation of BRIDGE materials in consultation with the BRIDGE Office. Other individuals and organisations must obtain permission from the BRIDGE Office before undertaking translations. 6. BRIDGE facilitators and implementers must provide additional activities and resources, translations, evaluations and program reports to the BRIDGE website, via the BRIDGE Office. This ensures that lessons are learnt, and that the curriculum is improved on an ongoing basis. While BRIDGE’s initial focus was on election processes, its success has led the partners to explore a broadening of the curriculum to include wider issues of democracy and governance. Major work is currently being undertaken on the development of a democracy and governance curriculum for the Asia-Pacific region. To date this curriculum has been piloted in Vanuatu and Bhutan. In this work, strong emphasis is as always being placed on the role of stakeholders both in the development of the curriculum and as potential target audiences for the workshops.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to overcome in the development and implementation of BRIDGE has been the resistance the “new approach” taken by BRIDGE in helping electoral administrators to improve their service delivery. The innovative BRIDGE methodology represented a major departure from the prescriptive “operational training” approach that had previously predominated in the international electoral landscape. This meant that all BRIDGE partners had to advocate for the new, comparative, values-based approach that BRIDGE embodied. Much work was done with the United Nations and with AusAID and other donors, in international forums, to explain the benefits of such an approach. Apart from advocating for the methodology of BRIDGE, another central strategy was promoting the notion of electoral administration as a profession, both to the administrators themselves and to potential implementers and funders. Yet another strategy has been the modelling of professionalism and diplomacy by all the facilitators and implementers of BRIDGE. It was the belief of the partners that if the highest standards were maintained from the outset, BRIDGE would “sell itself”. This has proven to be the case. In the almost 10 years since BRIDGE was introduced to the world of elections, there have been numerous reviews of the curriculum and possible modes of implementation of BRIDGE. Client satisfaction arrangements are constantly reviewed and have gone through a series of changes. The most obvious change is the expansion of the number of election-based modules from 10 to 23. This has been in response to the stated needs expressed by clients and has provided clients and facilitators with more choice when building their programs. The TTF curriculum has also gone through a series of changes in order to incorporate much of what has been learnt through client feedback. There is now much more emphasis on the customization and writing of materials. This has enabled facilitators to become proficient in building BRIDGE programs that are specific to the needs of each context in which BRIDGE is used. This has invariably led to better client satisfaction outcomes. The biggest change that has taken place recently in relation to collecting and using client satisfaction data is the more comprehensive approach taken to collection of baseline data in the new Democracy and Governance modules of BRIDGE. After two years of implementing the election related modules in BRIDGE Version 2, it was seen as timely by the BRIDGE partners that data collection and evaluation methodologies be revisited. With this in mind, an evaluation expert, who is also an accredited BRIDGE facilitator, was engaged to redesign methods for capturing client satisfaction data and for improving education outcomes. This involves the collection of a great deal more data pre-workshop and then matching this with post-workshop data in order to evaluate the changes in attitudes, skills and knowledge. This process is in its early stages but is likely to be applied to all aspects of the BRIDGE curriculum and its implementation.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The BRIDGE office currently has 5 staff members, 3 working on Elections BRIDGE and 2 on the new Democracy and Governance curriculum and methodologies. The office has recurrent annual staff and development costs of approximately $700,000USD. Currently the bulk of the costs are covered by the AEC but the Democracy and Governance costs are covered by AusAID, the United Nations Democracy Fund and IDEA, BRIDGE has now become a central element of the long and short term field plans of UNDP and IFES. Indeed, UNDP guidelines on the planning and implementation of electoral assistance programs suggest that BRIDGE should be considered for use in all such programs. BRIDGE is being rolled out across Africa, South East Asia, the Pacific, South and Central Asia and the Middle East. Indeed, BRIDGE has taken a leadership role worldwide in electoral capacity development. The focus on the quality of facilitators and the training of local facilitators in every country context has meant that the quality of delivery has matched the quality of curriculum. It has also meant that BRIDGE has been adopted and owned by virtually every country that has used it. This is evidenced by the universally positive feedback from clients and the numerous examples of countries that are using BRIDGE multiple times. The implementation manual and workshops have also served to ensure that the innovative approaches of BRIDGE are implemented in the highest quality way and offer the highest level of client service. The combination of these two resources provides excellent support to implementers of BRIDGE. Using the AEC BRIDGE office as a secretariat for the partners and as a central source of advice and information has also helped to sustain the innovative approach of BRIDGE. The BRIDGE website is also an outstanding resource in this regard. It enables potential BRIDGE clients to gain an understanding of what BRIDGE is. It provides them with testimonials from BRIDGE users and with descriptions of where BRIDGE has been conducted and how it was received. At the same time, the website provides quality assurance by providing facilitators and implementers with easy, password protected access to all of the BRIDGE curriculum and attendant resources as well as to the implementation manual. The BRIDGE partners also wanted to make better use of: a vast compendium of electoral material produced by experts in the ACE: Electoral Knowledge Network; publications from International IDEA, IFES and UNDP; academic articles; election reports; sample electoral legislation; case studies; and activities developed by a range of practitioners from all over the world. BRIDGE not only benefits form the quality of the content of these resources, but has also facilitated more focussed and widespread uses of those resources.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
In the first instance, BRIDGE is generally funded by external donor agencies; however, the two guiding principles that underpin BRIDGE are sustainability and local ownership. This is certainly the case in countries such as Papua New Guinea (PNG). In PNG, the initial BRIDGE programs were part of an AusAID funded program, but as the number of accredited and experienced local facilitators grew, so too did the political will of the PNGEC to self-fund. PNG now has the ability to plan, fund, implement and evaluate BRIDGE programs from its own resources and this becoming the reality in places such as Nepal and Timor Leste. Electoral assistance providers recognise that the building of a strong and stable electoral culture in-country is more important than providing ad hoc electoral assistance from outside. Two of the largest, UNDP and the European Commission, have specifically recommended incorporating an electoral cycle approach and focussing on capacity development in their electoral assistance programming (see Electoral Assistance Manuals from the respective organisations). Ideally, BRIDGE should be one component of an integrated package of broader electoral assistance or of a wider and longer-term capacity development strategy that incorporates other interventions such as technical assistance, operational training, and mentoring. BRIDGE is not a ‘fix-all’, a ‘stop gap’, and a ‘stand-alone’ product that can meet all needs. BRIDGE can neither deliver a total electoral assistance package nor take complete responsibility for capacity development. Designing and implementing BRIDGE programs as multi-partner initiatives goes a long way to maximising BRIDGE’s institutional development potential. BRIDGE partner organisations are well placed for such cooperation. This has occurred in the Caucasus, The Pacific Island nations and The Middle East. BRIDGE has the potential to trigger change at an organisational level. It can provide a broader understanding of an organisation and cohesion within the organisation. Workshops encourage participants to reflect on comparative examples and alternative approaches, generating blueprints or support for organisational reform. An example of this is Timor Leste, where a large number of the senior management of the EMB are BRIDGE graduates. BRIDGE has the potential to impact change also on the environmental level. As a dialogue tool, the content, methodology, and non-threatening environment can contribute to a shared understanding of the challenges ahead and improved relationships between disparate stakeholders. By practicing skills such as analysis of alternative approaches and advocacy, participants are well placed to affect change on a broader level. BRIDGE programs have resulted in networks of professionals within institutions, regionally and internationally, that have provided peer support and served as triggers for reform long after the end of the formal program. BRIDGE is also sustained by the ongoing funding of the BRIDGE office by the AEC and by development funds provided by International IDEA and IFES. A broad partnership, such as the one used by BRIDGE means that BRIDGE is not dependent on one funding source only.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The best recent illustration of BRIDGE’s ability to learn and adapt is the move to the new Democracy and Governance (the Civic Education Development Program - CEDP) elements of the project. To date, this part of the project has been funded by AusAID. AusAID made it clear from the start that its support for the project owed a lot to the high regard it had for what the elections curriculum of BRIDGE had already achieved. The importance of this new element of BRIDGE and the leadership it provides has also been recognised through its securing funding in the 2009 round of United Nation Democracy Fund (UNDEF) grants. The planning and governance of BRIDGE have been reviewed regularly, first by the EAG and now by the BRIDGE Partner Committee (BPC). The BPC is itself evidence of this review. The original partners have worked hard to expand the partnership to include UNDP and IFES. This has already had a huge positive impact on the amount of BRIDGE programs implemented around the world, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia. When the partnership expanded, it necessitated a new exchange of letters which formalised the role each of the partners have in the planning and governance of BRIDGE. The EAG had always been, as the name implied, an advisory body. With expansion of the partnership, it was necessary to create a governing body and to ensure that protocols were in place to ensure the smooth and productive governing of the project. It was also important to revisit the partner expectations of the project in order to ensure they did not contradict each another. This arrangement has been very effective as it has overseen the development and implementation of BRIDGE Version 2 and is now overseeing the development of the Democracy and Governance elements of BRIDGE. To date all deadlines have been met and all new curriculum documents have been developed to the satisfaction of the partners and BRIDGE clients. BRIDGE implementation has expanded dramatically in the last two years and this necessitated a look at the existing facilitator levels to ensure that the quality of facilitators was maintained but that the quantity of facilitators was sufficient to meet the current demand. The new categories are • Specialist Facilitator • Accrediting • Workshop Facilitator The most pressing concern was the shortage of “Accrediting” facilitators, as the presence of an accrediting facilitator is required for a new facilitator to be authorised to become a “Workshop” facilitator. A decision was made to clarify the minimum hours required and the skills needed to attain each of the categories. The BRIDGE website and, in particular the BRIDGE partner newsletter were used to facilitate discussion and to outline this new approach.


Institution Name:		Australian Electoral Commission
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Ross Attrill
Title:		Acting Director International Services
Telephone/ Fax:		+61392857114
Institution's / Project's Website:		+61392857117
E-mail:		ross.attrill@aec.gov.au
Address:		Level 8, 2 Lonsdale St
Postal Code:		3001
City:		Melbourne
State/Province:		Victoria
Country:		Australia

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information