| Presentation
7
ALEKSANDRA BABIĆ, PROGRAM COORDINATOR IFES/ AEOBiH SECRETARIAT
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I will attempt to lead you briefly through
the activities the Association has planned to start and implement
in 2003 and 2004. I want to say that the whole plan is still in
a draft form, and everything is, of course, subject to the future
financing available to us. I hope we will know something more about
this in the near future. Now we will go through the draft plan adopted
by the Management Board at its session. We have divided the planned
activities in several categories:
Professional development programs:
- Election course, very well known to everybody. The instructors
of the Election Course have been working for few days before the
beginning of this conference, right here in Neum, on proposal of
the Election Course project, which will be submitted in near future
to an international donor we identify. The course has covered 40%
members of the municipal election commissions, and the Association
has planned to implement six additional cycles of this course;
- The conflict resolution course is planned for January 2003. One
hundred interested applicants applied for this course, so the interest
is there and very strong. The applicants may expect the invitations
from the project leaders. Also, this course too is planned for submission
to the selected international donors, meaning that we would develop
a new project proposal to provide the possibility of implementing
this project in the next two years.
The Youth Program:
- Winter and summer education camps on elections for the young,
meaning the students of the primary and secondary schools. Some
camps have already been organized and mentioned here. They were
organized in the summer this year, and we have planned for the winter
camps in January 2003. After that, we are expecting a response on
the project proposal, which was submitted to an international donors
for the future summer and winter camps, and we sincerely hope that
we will be lucky and that this project will be approved;
- “Elections and democracy,” a curriculum for university and secondary
students on elections and democracy. You know that we have had it,
you have heard a report on this, and for the future, the negotiations
are held with the OSCE mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina. We hope
that we will be able to fit this course in their existing curricula,
within the reform of the education system in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
If we manage to do so, that will be the way we will be going about
this course, and if we fail, the course will be offered to the international
donors too.
Cooperation with the America’s Development
Foundation:
- ADF training (Integral Support Package), development of cooperation
with other NGO. Under the “support package”, we have secured training
and professional development, particularly for the members of the
Associations’ bodies, and some of them have already undergone such
trainings and will continue to attend seminars, for instance, on
strategic planning, project proposal writing, marketing, and all
those topics related to the sustainability and operation of an association
like ours;
- ADF IDG program: the Association plans to apply for this program.
Under this program, we expect to receive some funds for sustainable
growth, covering some promotional materials and operational costs
for this Association;
- Partnership through civil initiatives (CAP Project). The first
version of this project has recently been submitted for approval
by ADF, and after their instructions, it will be revised and resubmitted
for approval. This project includes cooperation with the Election
Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the purpose of initiating
and adopting the Law on Financing the Elections and Operation of
the Election Agencies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This project contains
an important component of public advocacy, and we hope to be successful
with it.
- Cooperation with the NGO CENTRAS from Romania. We hope to be able
to take all good experiences of a non-governmental organization
that has become self-sustainable, managing to survive without the
international assistance, that is our goal too.
Election activities:
Activities that await us in 2004, and are related to elections,
are the following:
- Voter registration and updating the voters’ rolls;
- Political party education on the Election Law;
- Roundtables for the municipal election commissions in the section
of the Association.
International Activities:
- To continue cooperation with the Association of the Election Administrators
of the United Kingdom (AEA), the Association of Election Officials
of Central and Eastern Europe (ACEEEO), and the Association of Clerks,
Election Officials and Treasurers from the USA (IACREOT). We hope
to develop this cooperation through the attendance of our representatives
and our delegations in their conferences. For this type of activities,
we will also seek funding from international donors;
- Election observation in other countries;
- Organization of the election observation programs in BIH for the
election officials from other countries. We have already implemented
a similar program for the Albanian delegations in October 2002,
and intend to apply for such programs in future.
Other Activities:
- Meetings of the Management Board and professional development
for the purpose of sustainability;
- Meetings of the Legal Council to focus on the work on bylaws of
the Election Law and on cooperation with the Election Commission
of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
- AEOBiH Annual Conference;
- The “Elections” newsletter.
Projects under Development:
- Project “Democracy, Good Governance and Rule of Law”. For this
Project, the application was submitted to the European Commission
in November, and we expect to receive their response in June 2003.
In the end of this point, I would like to separate
some activities that cannot be called projects under preparations,
since those are the projects currently negotiated between the IFES
and USAID:
- Program "Money and Politics" (MAP);
- Elections in the Brcko District;
- Conflict of interest.
I wish to emphasize that the Association is hoping
and is willing to provide any kind of assistance to the implementer
of those programs, if any opportunity for that occurs, and if the
Association is invited to do so.
Thank you very much. |
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