LEAD MAPUTO

Within the framework of the PEV SADC Project - Preventing Election Violence in the SADC Region, the European Centre for Electoral Support carried out a Gender LEAD - Gender & Leadership and Conflict Management Training in Maputo. This training was organised jointly for the Comissão Nacional de Eleições and the Secretariado Técnico de Apoio Eleitoral. The 5-day training took place from December  12th to 16th, 2016 and aimed to capacitate representatives of the CNE and the STAE  on matters of gender participation in electoral processes, as well as leadership and conflict management.

 
The LEAD training is one of ECES’ most important trainings and has been carried out in over 40 countries, in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic and Spanish. This innovative training aims to capacitate all electoral stakeholders to prevent, manage and mitigate election related conflicts and violence. Developed in 2009, the training is costumized to address the national and regional context of the country it is being carried in to. In this case, ECES’ experts and facilitators worked on tailoring the training to the request of the CNE by customising it to deal with gender participation issues in electoral processes and to the Mozambican context. 

As part of ECES’ policy of promoting South-South exchanges, the LEAD training was delivered by Elba Pires, member of the Cape Verde Electoral Commission, Zefanias Matsimbe, Senior Electoral Expert from Mozambique and Vera Lourenço from ECES' Coordination Cell in Brussels. The training also benefited from Dr. Beningna Zimba’s expertise on Mozambique’s Gender experience. Dr. Zimba is a Social History Professor at the Eduardo Mondlane’s University in Maputo. The training also benefited from the visit of Granville Abrahams, Senior Manager for Electoral Matters of the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa, that shared the South African experience on Gender Participation issues and Conflict Management with his Mozambican counterparts.

The European Delegation in Mozambique joined ECES in launching the training and Dr. Stergios Varvaroussis attended the opening ceremony, where he delivered a speech reinforcing the importance of the LEAD training and of the work ECES has been carrying out in the SADC region and of the EU cooperation with Mozambique.