UNDP's Global Programme for Electoral Cycle Support.

Elections are fundamentally political processes and are a critical element of democratic governance. Yet, elections that reflect the will of the people--and are also popularly perceived as doing so--depend on far more than the technical administration of electoral operations on voting day. Rather, the credibility of elections is dependent on a complex interplay of electoral laws, systems, institutions and processes that transcend any one election event.

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With this comprehensive picture in mind, and in response to a growing demand for its support, UNDP has established the first Global Programme for Electoral Cycle Support (GPECS). This programme sets out a harmonized and process-driven, rather than event-driven, approach to electoral support. By broadening and deepening the range of actors and entry points, electoral assistance that uses a cyclical approach provides a better opportunity to tackle over time a range of electoral and development challenges that will ultimately impact on the quality and perception of electoral processes, and to link these to the broader development and democratic governance agendas in a given country.

The GPECS is made up of four inter-linked substantive components:

1) Global: UNDP will provide leadership, advocacy and capacity development on electoral assistance by developing and maintaining global tools, innovative policies and knowledge products. This includes: studying issues such as electoral management design, applying technology to voter registration, and political party finance and regulation to improve the policy support on offer to developing countries; strengthening ways to assess the quality of an election; and developing and rolling out education programmes for election officials.

2) Regional: UNDP will enhance the exchange of good practices between all regions--Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Arab States, Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe/CIS. The greatest emphasis will be on Africa, given it accounts for nearly half of all UNDP's activities in elections.

3) National: UNDP will work with Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs) so that they are increasingly able to administer professional, transparent and credible elections; and to enhance relationships between those bodies and other critical stakeholders in electoral processes: political parties, civil society and the media.

4) Empowering women: In addition to these three levels, UNDP will include the cross cutting issues of inclusive participation and empowerment of women. UNDP will also look specifically at post-conflict environments where the constitution, electoral law and other texts are being redrafted, to ensure that the right checks and balances are built in so that women can and do play a stronger role in shaping their political landscape.

GPECS Support the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network

The GPECS will support the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network as a key component within the global and regional activities as a means to provide knowledge services; foster networking among electoral practitioners; and institutionalize a capacity development facility. This component will focus on the following areas:

* Knowledge Services and Networking: GPECS activities will build on the authoritative core ACE text (the encyclopaedia), sample materials and case studies, and translate outstanding core texts and other more dynamic features into Spanish and French (in addition to English, the two core languages of ACE); translation into Arabic of select sections of the encyclopaedia will also be made. These activities will also work to draft new core texts for the encyclopaedia on issues of current interest, such as effective electoral assistance, electoral observation, electoral dispute resolution, and the cost of registration and elections. GPECS will support the further development and use of the Practitioners' Network and its sustainable integration into the regional activities of ACE, in part through the retention of a network facilitator who will help to guide and codify discussions.

* Capacity Development Facility: GPECS will use the knowledge and expertise available in ACE (through the encyclopedia and the Practitioners' Network) to produce capacity development tools and methodologies based on the ACE knowledge base, and develop educational programmes, based on the ACE knowledge base, to be delivered on a modular basis, and leading to the awarding of formal certificates/diplomas by leading academic institutions and affiliated institutions in developing countries.

* ACE Development: The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network currently has had no established office or presence in the past. It had operated instead through the nine partner institutions' in-kind contributions and UNDP had provided the project management function, also in-kind. In 2009, ACE partners agreed to set up an Interim Secretariat and to undertake a strategic evaluation, which would provide a vision on how a formal Secretariat structure would look like. The GPECS will support the functioning of the interim Secretariat, hosted by International IDEA, with a small contingent of staff to run the day-to-day activities of the project.

* ACE Regional Resource Centres. The GPECS will support the work of the Regional Centres in a number of ways. First, it will help them consolidate their knowledge production and dissemination functions. Second, it will help them establish stronger links and contacts among themselves and across regions. Third, GPECS will develop in-house capacity to deliver electoral assistance regionally. And fourth, the Programme will assist the Centres in developing a sustainability strategy, including fundraising capacity, cost-saving technologies e.g. "eLearning" (where applicable) and regional centre autonomy.