Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy
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Africa Regional Programme
NIMD's Africa Regional Programme (ARP) focuses on peer learning.
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Contact person for this programme is Anne-Mieke van Beukelen. For more information on the political context and history of Ghana, see the ARP factsheet.
Programme summary
NIMD’s Africa Regional Programme (ARP) is one of the pillars of the Linking and Learning programme. It is premised on the understanding despite the diversity and country specific features that characterize NIMD partner countries in Africa, the democratization agenda faces a number of common challenges. Not only do a majority of these countries often share a common history, they naturally also tend to be grappling with quite a number of similar reform problems.
The Africa Regional Programme aims to stimulate interaction between political parties on the continent on themes which influence national democratic reform agendas. The objective is to share experiences and best practices and to identify appropriate solutions to challenges that involve a wide range of political institutions, political parties and other relevant stakeholders. Through the facilitation of peer to peer exchanges, the organisation of regional conferences, the production of research papers, and the development of training material and toolkits on issues of common concern, ARP contributes to the effective implementation of the individual NIMD country programmes.
ARP thus serves as a supporting and facilitating programme to the individual NIMD country programmes. It collects, assembles and redistributes the knowledge, lessons learned and best practices from the various country programmes, with the aim to stimulate shared learning and prevent NIMD partners from ‘reinventing the wheel’ in their programme strategies.
At a glance ...
NIMD partners in Africa
• Burundi Leadership Training Program (BLTP)
• Centre for Interparty Dialogue and Democracy, Mali (CMDID)
• Centre for Multiparty Democracy, Malawi (CMD-M)
• Centre for Multiparty Democracy, Kenya (CMD-K)
• Institute of Economic Affairs, Ghana (IEA)
• Interparty Organisation for Dialogue, Uganda (IPOD)
• NIMD Country Office, Mozambique
• Tanzanian Centre for Democracy (TCD)
• Zimbabwe Institute (ZI)
Key international partners
• Electoral Institute for Southern Africa (EISA)
• Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA)
• International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA)
• Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)
• SADC Parliamentary Forum
• Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa (AWEPA)
Key achievements 2010:
•Exchange programme between a delegation of Malian politicians and electoral stakeholders in Ghana, in order to deepen their understanding of the Ghana electoral management system. As a result, the political parties in Mali formulated their joint recommendations for the set-up of the new electoral management body in Mali.
•Exchange between delegation from the Ugandan Inter Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) and the Centre for multi-party Democracy in Malawi around dialogue with Electoral Management Bodies. As a result, the Ugandan politicians initiated a dialogue with the Ugandan Electoral Commission, in order to ensure the transparency of their own electoral process.
•Africa Regional Conference on ‘the electoral cycle and democratic reforms in Africa’, officially opened by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. The conference reflected on the important role that Electoral Management Bodies play in the consolidation of democracy, and the role interparty dialogue platforms can play to interact with those bodies.
•Workshop on the popularisation of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance in South Africa. Following that workshop, some NIMD partners organised national workshops on the Charter, to raise public awareness and to get the Charter ratified.
•Multi-country exchange programme in Kenya on constitutional reforms, bringing together politicians, constitutional experts and NIMD partners from Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Zambia to compare the content, outcome and inclusivity of their respective constitutional review and reform processes.
Key achievements 2011:
•Exchange programme between Uganda and Tanzania that allowed the key political parties from Uganda to reflect on their post-elections challenges by learning from how their Tanzanian counterparts deal with the post elections healing process.
•Africa Regional Conference in Mozambique, officially opened by former President Joaquim Chissano, on constitutional reforms and the roles political parties can play in these processes. As a result a praxis oriented publication was produced that showcases some guiding principles in constitutional reforms.
•Visit by a delegation of Mozambican politicians to Ghana and Mali, in order to deepen their understanding of the electoral management systems in those countries, and to come up with recommendations for their own electoral law revision.
•Multistakeholder workshop in Zimbabwe on Constitutional Reforms in order to provide the Zimbabwean with relevant information and experiences to develop strategies in managing the draft constitution, before, during and after the referendum.
•Production of policy paper exploring the existing relations between political parties and Civil Society Organisations and the opportunities for cooperation.
Key achievements 2012:
•Facilitator’s guide for political party dialogue developed, together with International IDEA and the Oslo Center
•Africa Regional Conference in Tanzania, officially opened by vice-President Mohammed Gharib Bilali, on political party financing, providin a unique forum for NIMD and its partners to share experiences on the various models of party financing and identify best practice on its regulation, modalities, and enforcement mechanisms.
•Political parties leadership training curriculum developed and piloted in Malawi.
•International workshop on democracy education programmes in Georgia, bringing together NIMD partners in and outside Africa to discuss how democracy education can contribute to democratic dialogue and reform
•Exchange programme between Kenya and Mozambique on campaign financing, that provided the Kenyan delegation with relevant input and feedback to the draft Campaign Finance Bill.
