STORY: SOMALI DELEGATION COMPLETES COURSE ON

ELECTION MANAGEMENT
TRT: 2:27
SOURCE: AMISOM PUBLIC INFORMATION SERVICES
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LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/NATS
DATELINE: 12
TH
JULY 2014, MOGADISHU, SOMALIA


STORY
A five-member delegation from Somalia Federal Government, Civil Society and
African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), alongside other African and US
participants completed two-weeks course in Ghana on election management.

The course, which covered the entire electoral cycle, was held at Kofi Annan
International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in the Ghana capital, Accra. It
covered both theory, lesson-sharing and exchange of experiences from Ghana, Togo,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Benin, Cote dIvoire, Cameroon, Kenya, Ethiopia,
Sierra Leon, Liberia, Gambia, South Africa, Somalia, Uganda and US.

On arrival in Mogadishu, Mr. Ssebirumbi Kisinziggo who is the AMISOM Senior
Political Affairs Officer, stated that the course also covered the expected
international norms and standards in an election cycle particularly the legal
framework, nature of election management body, electoral activities, election
funding and election observation in stable and post-conflict environments, in
promoting democracy especially in Africa.

Our duty as African Union is to implement our mandate. The mandate, which was
given to us by the Peace and Security Council, includes among the mandated tasks
supporting the Government for a free and fair election to be held in 2016. So the
purpose of our mobilization of this delegation was to go and get the opportunity to
get the skills and get the experience and get the challenges that have been face d by
other countries. We were meeting for this period of two weeks to train on election
management on how to organise and manage election bodies on how to handle
election disputes and how to handle any other activities that are involved in an
electoral cycle. An electoral cycle begins from right at the end of the previous
election to the next election so what we were doing was exactly to document what
happens in every activity and be able to look at the challenges be able to look at
good practises, international legislation and legal framework and also look at the
experiences that have had else where and see how we can have a better election if
we have the elections in 2016 here in Somalia, said Mr. Ssebirumbi

As part of field work, the participants interacted with the Ghana Centre for
Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), a local Non-Governmental Organization that
has contributed in successful election observation in Ghana and Africa at large.
Ghana, as a role model in Africa held a successful election in 2012, a peaceful dispute
resolution in courts of laws and is at advanced stage of preparing Biometric Voters
Registration.

Deputy Minister of Information in the Federal Government of Somalia, Hon
Abdullahi Olad Roble, said that the course met the delegations expectations
especially at a time when Somalia is working on the legal framework in preparation
for free and fair 2016 election.

On behalf of the government, Hon Abdullahi expressed gratitude to AMISOM for
organizing the course on building capacity in Somalia and appealed for more
capacity building for Somalis in this area as Somalia looks ahead of 2016 electoral
process.

ENDS