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Summary Note to Support NEBE of Conducting Referendum

Summary Note on the Support Provided to NEBE Throughout Its Mission of Conducting Referendum in Six Zones and Five Special Woredas of the SNNP Regional State

 

With the overall goal of increasing and enhancing the institutional and technical capacity of the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) in conducting credible electoral processes and election outcomes, we have played a significant role for the success of the recently organized referendum in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region (SNNP) regional state of Ethiopia which resulted in the formation of a new region called “South Ethiopia regional state” as the 12th member state of the Ethiopian federation following the official and unanimous endorsement of the result by the FDRE House of Federation during its meeting held on 05 July 2023.

ECES’s technical and logistical support started at the earlier stages of NEBE’s preparation for the referendum by helping the Board in its search for and the setup of Referendum Coordination Office in Arba-Minch, and continued all the way to the proper cascade of different layers of trainings for election officers and law enforcement bodies, transportation of training and operational materials, deployment of its staff to the field who played pivotal role by extending their technical and expertise in guiding and supervising the training cascade. In this context, the specific activities supported by the EURECS and EURECS+ projects include but not limited to:

 

  1. With the aim of conducting cascade training on voters’ registration, voting, counting and results announcement for 18,000 Poll Workers and deliver Tabulation Training and results reconciliation trainings for 240 election officers from 11 referendum branch Officers and 26 zonal/special woreda coordination centers:
  • A two-days Lead Trainers Training was conducted on the referendum voting, counting, and results announcement Manual for 12 participants in Addis Ababa.
  • A four-days Field Trainers cascade Training on the referendum voting, counting, and results announcement Manual was conducted in two rounds for 245 participants in Arba-Minch.
  • Six-days poll workers training on the referendum voting, counting, and results announcement Manual was conducted in three rounds for 11,304 participants in 26 selected training centers.
  • A six-days mobile supervision of the poll workers Training on the referendum voting, counting, and results announcement Manual was conducted in three rounds in all the 26 training centers. Two ECES experts have been deployed in 12 of the training centers for the supervision mission.
  • A one-day training was conducted on the referendum results reconciliation for 131 election officers from the 26 Zonal/Special Woreda Coordination Centers in Arba-Minch.
  • A two-day Training was conducted on the referendum results Reconciliation, Tabulation, Verification, and results announcement Manual for 61 participants in Arba-Minch.
2. As part of its support to the electoral security and peaceful settlement of electoral disputes by strengthening the capacity of the law enforcement bodies to be assigned to election administration spots – polling station, zonal and special district coordination office and centers –, ECES collaborated with the Legal Department of NEBE and the Ethiopian Police University and organized:
  • A one-day training for 45 police officers drawn from SNNPR Police Commission and police departments of the six zones and five special woredas (January 13, 2023). Participants were heads of police departments of the 6 zones and 5 special and heads of crime prevention divisions as well as senior commanders from the Regional Police Commission.
  • Other than the training, 5000 copies of the pocket size code of conduct for police officers assigned to electoral facilities and 1000 copies of the security directive of NEBE was distributed at the end of the training to each police department and the Regional Police Commission.  
  •  A one-day training on investigation of electoral offences and crimes was delivered for 45 for police officers drawn from SNNPR Police Commission and the respective Police Departments of the six zones and five special woredas where elections were organized. (January 27, 2023). Topics covered during the training include major benchmarks on election and electoral offences, Ethiopian law on electoral offences, basic principles, and skills relatable to investigating electoral offences.
  1. ECES procured, transported, and installed high quality 30 Kva Perkins Generator to provide uninterrupted electricity power supply to the Regional Referendum Coordination Office of NEBE in Arba-Minch.
  2. Under the EURECS (+) Project, ECES procured and deployed a total of 167 trucks to transport and delivered training and operational electoral materials to 33 referendum coordination centers from Addis Ababa.
  3. ECES also supported the logistical needs of the Board and its management staff at the earlier stages of preparing for the referendum in their search and set-up of zonal/special woreda coordination offices.