LEAD Free State: Panellists

A Leadership and Conflict Management (LEAD) workshop for conflict management panelists in Free State is currently being held in Kroonstad, South Africa from 11 to 12 of March 2019. This 2-day LEAD training is part of part of the PEV-RSA national project, funded by the European Union. The PEV RSA project (www.democracy-support.eu/southafrica) is 24 months (2018/20) and is implemented by the European Centre for Electoral Support in partnership with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

The people trained over the next two days will be part of the provincial pool of mediators for PEV-RSA, able to monitor local situations and hotspots, and work with ECES experts to intervene if necessary. This modality ensures that responses remain sensitive to the local context, while still retaining the international scope and expertise that ECES is well known.

Furthermore, by building the local actors from across Free State, the Project raises the overall capacity of the province’s electoral stakeholders, increasing the likelihood of self-reporting and incident de-escalation without the need for external mediators. This is just another way that sustainability is threaded through the entire PEV-RSA project.  

This is the 15th LEAD training nationally with trainings already occurring across South Africa. It should also be noted that tainings are taking place this week in Eastern Cape and Gauteng in preparation for the National and Provincial Elections on May 8, 2019. This training is part of the PEV RSA project’s capacity building component.

The curriculum on Leadership and Dialogue was crafted by ECES in partnership with Centre for Creative Leadership, CCL. CCL is based the US and delivers high-end executive education for world leaders. Such trainings are usually very costly and require far more time than what one usually can afford. The partnership between CCL and ECES emerged to make leadership training accessible and affordable for electoral stakeholders.

Leadership training blended with dialogue techniques has so far proven to be a winning concept. Leadership, both for the individual and organizational level, are essential components of electoral processes.

The LEAD workshop in Kroonstad is meant to explore various ways how exchange between stakeholders of difference of opinion, beliefs or ideologies can be carried out almost conflict-free by making use of technical skills.

In sum then, this workshop in Kroonstad is a forum whereby mediators and conflict prevention coordinators in Free State can further develop skills in leadership and dialogue and learn new skills and approaches on how to succeed with dialogue.

The workshop is being facilitated by Dr. Zefanias Matsimbe, Senior Lecturer at Eduardo Mondiane University and a senior expert at EISA, Joyce Pitso, LEAD Facilitator, and Jestina Mukoko, LEAD Facilitator and Director of Zimbabwe Peace Project.