New Delhi : The Election Commission of India today released five International Training Modules on Planning for Elections, Political Finance, Voter Registration, Election Technology, and Political Parties & EMBs. This is part of a total ten modules under preparation by India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM) in collaboration with International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). The Modules were virtually launched by Chief Election Commissioner Shri Sushil Chandra along with Election Commissioners Shri Rajiv Kumar & Shri Anup Chandra Pandey, along with the President, IFES, Mr. Anthony Banbury and his team joining from Washington, through a video conference.
CEC Shri Sushil Chandra in his address emphasized that the Election Commission of India places high value on innovation and technological up-gradation to ensure meticulous, accurate, voter friendly implementation of election processes by committed, competent, credible and skilled managers. Shri Sushil Chandra welcomed the development of these well-informed updated subject specialized modules for international trainees who will be trained at IIIDEM. He appreciated the wide range of topics being covered to address the key dimensions in any election management process.
Election Commissioner Shri Rajiv Kumar in his message spoke about the importance of these module designs, considering the ever-increasing challenges in various aspects of election administration as seen internationally and faced by the Election Management Bodies worldwide. He noted that the modules are designed in a versatile pattern, so as to render them compatible with face-to-face, online and e-Learning training hybrid modes.
Election Commissioner Shri Anup Chandra Pandey highlighted that the Modules can serve as informative material for understanding the process of election management on a wide range of topics of significant importance towards training and capacity development in preparation of election management plans, observation procedures, electoral technology, electoral systems, legal framework.
The President of IFES, Mr. Anthony Banbury gave a brief overview of the IFES-ECI partnership & the modules. He assured ECI of IFES-IIIDEM continuing partnership in knowledge sharing.
The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) is a Washington DC based non-governmental organisation which supports citizens’ right to participate in free and fair elections. ECI had initially signed a MoU in May 2012 with IFES for developing training modules and capacity building. Recently in 2019, after the visit of the then CEC to Washington, IFES agreed to update the eight existing International Training modules and create two new modules namely Political Parties & EMBs and Social Media & Elections. Contract for this was signed on August 5, 2020.
DG IIIDEM and Senior DEC Shri Dharmendra Sharma also informed that the Hon’ble Commission has approved the translations of portions of these modules into Spanish, French and Portuguese as part of the commitment made by the then CEC of India in September 2019 as chair of A-Web, in response to request of several Least Developed Countries for IIIDEM to embark upon “foreign language assisted modules”.
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