Highlights:

• IDEA Contributes to African Union Charter on Electoral Standards
• Electoral Participation in Focus at Global EMB Meetings
• New Global Database on Electoral Quotas for Women

Dear Reader,

Welcome to IDEA’s new style electronic newsletter. It is designed to give you direct links through to our web site, where there are longer texts corresponding to news items. The web site itself is also being revamped. The newsletter will be a monthly production, bringing you more timely indications about new developments in IDEA and its work programme. We encourage you to send it on to your colleagues or encourage them to subscribe directly. It can also be downloaded for those of you who like a hard copy.

Just this once, we are printing a hard copy version of this newsletter to send to those of you who relied on receiving the hard copy of our old twice yearly newsletter in the past. We hope you can now switch to email - let us have your email address if necessary. If you really have no internet access to reach IDEA, then please let us know…

There are many changes now in IDEA - programme, priorities, Board members, staffing…The newsletter will try to keep you up to date. Please give us your reactions.

Karen Fogg
Secretary General

HIGHLIGHTS

• African Union Charter on Electoral Standards

In February of this year, IDEA provided substantive input in the drafting of two documents designed to strengthen democratic processes in Africa, a “Declaration on Democracy, Elections and Good Governance” and “Guidelines for Determining Involvement in Election Observation and Code of Conduct for Election Observers”.

The documents were presented for and endorsed by 350 representatives of African electoral management bodies, civil society, academia, and parliamentarians as well as international and regional organizations during a conference in Pretoria, 7-10 April., and will be presented for endorsement by the African Heads of State at the African Union Summit in Maputo in July 2003. Read more

• New global database on Electoral Quotas for Women

Launched on International Women’s Day 2003, this new website, a collaborative research project between International IDEA and Stockholm University’s Department of Political Science, is the first overview of the use of electoral quotas for women worldwide. It provides comparative knowledge and resources on electoral quotas for women and provides information on the various types of quotas in existence today, detailing the percentages and targets in countries where they are applicable. This is an im portant issue since the representation of women in national parliaments currently stands at 15 percent worldwide even though data indicates that 76 countries have introduced some type of gender quota. Read more

• IDEA focuses on electoral participation and international electoral standards during global meetings of electoral management bodies (EMBs) in India and Mexico

At the Foundations of Democracy: Building Electoral Participation meeting, which took place in New Delhi 5-7 March, discussions ranged from mechanisms of participation to innovative techniques for encouraging participation, and from the role of media and voter education in increasing participation to the removal of barriers to participation. The meeting produced recommendations for media on the principles and guidelines for reporting on elections, and provided an opportunity for electoral administrators to network and benefit from sharing their experiences in solving the common problems faced by them all. Read more

In Mexico, IDEA participated in the 2nd Global Election Organizations (GEO) Conference, held in partnership with IFE of Mexico, UN Electoral Assistance Division (EAD), Elections Canada and IFES. The event, which provided a common meeting place for electoral administrators from nine regional and three global electoral organisations, as well as over 25 electoral commissions from around the world, further sharpened the discussion on international electoral standards. Read more

OTHER NEWS

• Seminars in Peru, Indonesia, and Burkina Faso on obstacles to women’s participation marked the launch of new regionalized versions of the IDEA Handbook Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers

These included a forum in the Congress of the Republic of Peru on 25 February in partnership with the Second Vice-Presidency of the Republic, a seminar in partnership with the Centre for Democratic Governance on 4 March in Burkina Faso, and a workshop on women in politics in Indonesia on 8 March 2003.

Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers examines the obstacles women encounter throughout the parliamentary election processes and outlines successful strategies that women parliamentarians have used to bring about constructive change and to influence the political process. First printed in 1998, an updated English version is now available on the IDEA website and the latest regionalized versions are available for download:

French: Les Femmes au parlement : Au-delà du nombre
Spanish: Mujeres en el Parlamento. Más allá de los números
Bahasa Indonesian: Perempuan di Parlemen: Bukan Sekedar Jumlah

• IDEA Participates in Peruvian Truth & Reconciliation Seminar

The seminar, held in Lima, Peru from 4-6 June and organized by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Peru, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, IDEA, and the International Centre for Transitional Justice ICTJ, centered on the theme Post Truth Commission Processes in the World. Representatives of IDEA introduced the new handbook Reconciliation After Violent Conflict, which presents a range of tools that can be, and have been, employed in the design and implementation of reconciliation processes by providing practical and pragmatic advice urgently needed by politicians and policy-makers facing the challenge of constructing and sustaining a shared democratic future for a society divided by a violent past. Read more

• Knowledge-sharing on Electoral Management in Jakarta

IDEA, together with the Jakarta-based Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS), organized a visit to Jakarta by India’s Election Commissioner T.S. Krishna Murthi, South African Commissioner Brigalia Bam, Former Thai Commissioner Gotham Arya, and Jose Woldenberg, President of Instituto Federal Electoral, Mexico. The aim of the February visit was to stress how an independent election commission can provide vital integrity to the electoral process, and to provide an opportunity to share experiences on means with which to ensure best practices in electoral management in new and challenging electoral situations. Read more

...DID YOU KNOW?

• IDEA’s bi-annual Board and Council Meetings held on 9-11 December in Oslo, Norway welcomed new Members and approved a Framework Programme of Activities for 2003-2005. Read more
• In December 2002, Germany became IDEA’s 19th Member.
• In January 2003, Mexico became IDEA’s 20th Member.
• In February 2003, Uruguay became IDEA’s 21st Member.
• In March 2003, Japan took up observer status with IDEA.
• Bahasa Indonesian and Burmese versions of the IDEA Handbook Democracy at the Local Level have been released. Read more