ECES at SEAC workshop

The European Centre for Electoral Support is honoured to having been invited by the SADCs Electoral Advisory Council (SEAC) to form part of a stakeholder panel meant to act as a sounding board to the SEACs mediation strategy.

The workshop was held in Cape Town 14th December and engaged both SADC member state representatives and a group of stakeholders identified as influential in the region on electoral matters. Amongst others, the African Union, the Electoral Commissions Forum of the SADC, EISA, SADC Parliamentary Forum, SADC Law Society and ACCORD were present. ECES was proudly represented by Election Conflict Management Advisor, Victoria Florinder, who congratulated the SEAC on behalf of ECES in their aspiration to craft a strategy that will improve the potential to deal with conflict before it arises in the SADC.

The workshop was structured in two parts whereby the first half of the day was used to scrutinise the mediation strategy itself and the second part was dedicated to a presentation undersigned EISA on the new training curriculum for SADC Observers. SEAC pledged to hold follow up meetings and ECES looks much forward to continue to be part of this important and commendable initiative. The experiences and lessons learned from ECES work in the SADC region especially through the conflict prevention project entitled "Preventing Election Related Violence in the SADC - a Project in Support of the Election Support Network of Southern Africa" (PEV SADC) was shared in the frame of the workshop. ECES is currently finalising a publications on precisely its lessons from having supported conflict prevention in the SADC over the past 4 years. The publication will be available on ECES website and announced on its social media channels to alert interested followers.