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LESSON

Lesson Learned: Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

Providing local actors with an interest in running Citizen Assemblies with access to global networks, knowledge and experts who can offer guidance and learnings from their experiences is key in supporting their successful adaptation. In this project UNDEFs Implementing Partner offered valuable technical support and access to practitioner networks that supported local partner implementation and offered opportunities for sustained engagement around the Citizen Assembly model.

Project Name
Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections
Project Partner
The newDemocracy Foundation
Project Description

Making democracies more inclusive requires bold and innovative reforms to bring the young, the poor, and minorities into the political system. Some countries have piloted initiatives for assemblies on specific issues where members are not nominated by political parties but chosen at random for a limited term to represent all sectors of society, to prevent the formation of self-serving and self-perpetuating political classes disconnected from their electorates. The project aims to enable more countries to develop initiatives of this kind. It will develop and distribute a handbook on ‘Democracy Beyond Elections’ designed to show how nations at various levels of development can apply the principles of representation and deliberation in ways that are appropriate to their economic and educational circumstances. The project will fund three pilot projects to further the demonstration effect and produce a documentary based on one of these to demonstrate how deliberative democracy can work in practice. Among citizens, the project will work to build the sense that ordinary people are involved in making decisions that affect them, and thus to promote trust in Government. Among elected representatives, the project will work to stimulate a greater openness to complementary democratic models in which citizens explore and recommend policy solutions on key issues.

Report
UDF-17-739-GLO_final.pdf
Evaluation Date
March 2025
Theme
Interaction with government
Country
Brazil
Malawi
North Macedonia
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

Investing the time to consult widely, and with an array of thinkers on approaches to deliberative democracy from across the globe, can create a product that positions the drafters as thought-leaders on the issue, increasing the likelihood that others thinking about how to implement such approaches will reference and consult it. UNDEF’s Implementing Partner in this case drew on its existing networks of Citizen Assembly experts and practitioners to produce a robust and widely accepted deliberative democracy implementation handbook.

Link to the deliberative democracy implementation handbook

Project Name
Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections
Project Partner
The newDemocracy Foundation
Project Description

Making democracies more inclusive requires bold and innovative reforms to bring the young, the poor, and minorities into the political system. Some countries have piloted initiatives for assemblies on specific issues where members are not nominated by political parties but chosen at random for a limited term to represent all sectors of society, to prevent the formation of self-serving and self-perpetuating political classes disconnected from their electorates. The project aims to enable more countries to develop initiatives of this kind. It will develop and distribute a handbook on ‘Democracy Beyond Elections’ designed to show how nations at various levels of development can apply the principles of representation and deliberation in ways that are appropriate to their economic and educational circumstances. The project will fund three pilot projects to further the demonstration effect and produce a documentary based on one of these to demonstrate how deliberative democracy can work in practice. Among citizens, the project will work to build the sense that ordinary people are involved in making decisions that affect them, and thus to promote trust in Government. Among elected representatives, the project will work to stimulate a greater openness to complementary democratic models in which citizens explore and recommend policy solutions on key issues.

Report
UDF-17-739-GLO_final.pdf
Evaluation Date
March 2025
Theme
Interaction with government
Country
Brazil
Malawi
North Macedonia
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Electoral Justice Principles for Trust in the Electoral Process in Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone

The project hired consultants to draft the principles and held a drafting conference in Bali instead of holding the dissemination conference in Kenya. It also undertook only one pilot application in Africa instead of two. This diluted its African focus and limited the awareness of the principles espoused by the project.
Project Name
Electoral Justice Principles for Trust in the Electoral Process in Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone
Project Partner
Tiri-Making Integrity Work
Project Description
The Electoral Justice Principles for Trust in the Electoral Process project sought to raise the integrity standard of the electoral processes in Africa by addressing the relations between the key electoral justice institutions and their relevance and accessibility to the electorate. Its main objectives were to: produce a set of electoral justice principles drafted by a group of chief justices and senior electoral and political leaders from Africa and other continents; and support the implementation of these principles in two African countries. Its intended outcomes were to increase trust in electoral justice authorities; reduce violence related to electoral dispute settlements, and to have political parties, candidates and civil society organizations (CSOs) in the pilot implementation country able to claim, advocate and defend rights for public integrity consultations. The project undertook minimal consultations with the large and dynamic electoral assistance sector and missed opportunities to tap its experience, explore collaboration and develop synergies with other efforts, such as the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security that promote the integrity of elections. The norms themselves were not disseminated as planned so awareness of them is extremely limited and they were not endorsed by any international organization as anticipated. Most of those interviewed felt the principles needed wider consultations and did not have the weight required to make significant changes. The project was not Africa-specific and African involvement was limited primarily to the launch in Ghana and the APEJ-SL. The principles and guidelines were global in scope, and were not tailored to Sierra Leone for the pilot. It also focused on general electoral integrity issues and lacked a clear focus on electoral justice and how specifically this could be achieved through the creation of a steering committee.
Report
UDF-RAF-08-217-ER-1.pdf
Evaluation Date
September 2012
Theme
Rule of law
Country
Sierra Leone
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Development of Sustainable Voter Registration Methodologies in Sub-Saharan Africa

However, Electoral Management Bodies were viewed primarily as interviewees and workshop participants, and all activities were implemented by international practitioners. It is hard to see the capacity building here. The original project document and logframe did not include activities to assess or monitor voter registation practices
Project Name
Development of Sustainable Voter Registration Methodologies in Sub-Saharan Africa
Project Partner
Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA)
Project Description
In recent decades, virtually every African country has at some point considered modernizing voter registration technology. New ICT applications have been adopted in many African countries, particularly in post-conflict situations. The project was based on a sound strategy that clearly identified the institutional weaknesses in voter registration models. In selecting partner countries, geographic balance, a variety of political contexts, linguistic diversity, and different levels of technical knowledge were sought. The project’s aim was to generate knowledge and disseminate it among experts and institutional stakeholders. However, the link between knowledge, capacity, and the actual election process, which depends primarily on political will, was not explicitly established in the project design, nor was it incorporated as such in the project strategy. All project activities were successfully implemented and even delivered beyond expectations. The project management team developed a strong organizational and logistical support mechanism to guarantee smooth operation of the database and provided easy and immediate access to it. The project had a number of positive impacts, including ongoing in-depth discussions of voter registration reforms.
Report
UDF-RAF-07-133-ER-1.pdf
Evaluation Date
November 2011
Theme
Tools for knowledge
Country
South Africa