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Democratic Governance and Election Management |
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Introduction
The development of
Democratic Governance and Election Management Programme was informed
by the needs assessment study done by a consultant in 2003/2004 (the
report of the study is available). This programme is a result of the
split of the former Democracy and Human Rights Programme into two
programmes. The other programme is Human Rights Monitoring Programme
which appears under the Democracy and Human Rights Commission in
this web site.
Objective
Contribute to the
enhancement of democracy, good governance and management of
elections in Lesotho through training and coordination of member
NGOs.
Programme
The program comprises
of Civic Education and Election Management.
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1. Civic Education
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i) Parliamentary Reforms
Programme seeks to facilitate public participation in the
parliamentary reform process. Currently this programme has no
funding. Therefore while the main activity is to mobilize resources,
there is an on going interaction with the Parliamentary Reform
Committee. In the pipeline there is going to be a one-day NGO forum
on the parliamentary reform programme. The expected outcome of the
meeting is NGO Position Paper on the parliamentary programme.
ii) Local Government Programme seeks to enhance peoples’
appreciation and participation in the local government structures
while influencing service delivery by the local councils. This
programme does not have funding. As a result the main function is to
fund raise. Since Lesotho only went for the first local government
elections in April, 2005, there have been three forums that were
held in this regard. Reports of the forums are available at LCN.
iii) Public Dialogue seeks to stimulate debate on national issues
around democratic governance. The idea is to inform the decision
making at various national levels especially at government,
parliament and civil society. The programme comprises of public
forums, conferences, seminars and media reports. There is no funding
for program. The main activity is source funding.
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2. Election Management |
i) Voter Education is aimed at enhancing peoples’ knowledge on the
electoral process. The Independent Electoral Commission is a key
player in this regard. As a result the voter education manual by the
commission is a key document in this programme.
ii) Election Observation is aimed at promoting credible election
management in Lesotho. The programme comprises of training of NGOs,
their deployment during the national and local elections. The
trained NGOs also observe by-elections. Election observation is
guided by a check list covering pre elections period, during the
elections and post elections period. The end result is a statement
that is distributed through the media in and out of the country.
iii) Electoral Review each election is a set of lessons learned that
help the role players to further improve election management. The
aim of this programme is facilitate review of the electoral process.
In October, 2004 a three day successful seminar that called together
the IEC, political parties, government and academic institutions in
and out of Lesotho (The report is available).
The Democratic Governance and Elections Management Programme is the
LCNs contribution in the national endeavors to be at peace within
itself and its neighbours as put by the Vision 2020.
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Related
Pages |
 Human
Rights Programme |
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Human
Rights Monitoring: People with disability |
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Human
Rights Monitoring: Workers’ Rights |
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Human
Rights Monitoring: Rights of People in Police Custody and
Correctional Services |
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Democratic Governance and Election Management |
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