After more than two years since the signature of the first version of the “Operational Guidelines”, a review of their implementation showed that they have met their objective of facilitating the implementation and improving joint EC UNDP electoral assistance projects and joint thematic activities of quality support and knowledge dissemination.
On December 1st 2008, during the 6th Joint EC UNDP IDEA Training on Effective Electoral Assistance, Director General of EuropeAid Koos Richelle and UNDP Associate Administrator, Ad Melkert have signed the first review of the operational guidelines that contains changes are based on:
- The feedback of EC Delegations and UNDP Country Offices;
- The observations of the relevant EC and UNDP services at Headquarters;
- The feedback gathered during the EC-UNDP Joint Training Sessions on Effective Electoral Assistance and through the daily work of the EC-UNDP Joint Task Force in supporting EC Delegation, UNDP Country Offices, relevant local authorities and the beneficiary electoral management bodies;
- The feedback gathered during the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) review between the EC and the UNDP held in Brussels, 6th December, 2007 at the presence of the UNDP Administrator, Kemal Dervis and the relevant EC services from the General Directorates of Development, External Relations and EuropeAid;
- The feedback gathered during the Director level dialogue between the EC and the UNDP on Africa held in Brussels, 14 March 2008.
The changes in the guidelines are mainly clarifications and updates to take into account the main developments that have occurred in this period. A retroactivity clause, on the possibility for the UNDP to advance funds for the project before the financial decision was taken away, considering that was the source of a series of misunderstandings and was removed from this revised version.
With the Guidelines setting the partnership, EC-UNDP interventions have benefited from better quality support from headquarters, increased (joint) support missions on the ground and new available tools and methodologies, all leading to more effective and timely formulation, implementation and evaluation of projects.
The role and visibility of the EC and the UNDP as major actors in the area of electoral assistance also grew considerably in the last two years. In this period, the partnership has also evolved and has been reinforced through the development of new activities such as: the expansion of the scope of the training activities, the enhanced collaboration with other actors, the launching of a website and the setting up of the Joint Task Force, composed of the relevant EC and UNDP staff dealing with electoral assistance at headquarters and external experts recruited by UNDP after consultation with the EC.
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