THE ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions, ECONEC, and the UN Development Programme, UNDP, have agreed to lend their full support to the conduct of credible and peaceful March 2018 elections in Sierra Leone.

This was the outcome of the meeting in Freetown on Thursday, July 13, 2017 between the ECONEC governing board delegation led Mahmood Yakubu by its president, and Sunil Saigal, the UNDP resident representative and senior staff of the Country Office.

In his introductory remarks, Yakubu outlined the objectives of the ECONEC’s Needs Assessment and Solidarity mission to Sierra Leone and the issues raised by various stakeholders around the conduct of the elections, especially funding gap, capacity strengthening for agencies and personnel, logistics support, security and the legal architecture.

“It is an important election for Sierra Leone, the first without the supervision or UN peace mission and we at the UNDP welcome the interest of the region (ECOWAS and ECONEC) ,” Saigal said. We support the elections and want to see that they are peaceful, free and fair.”

On the concerns about political will, funding, planned referendum, boundary delimitation and voter registration, the UN official said the UNDP had received the commitment and assurances of the Sierra Leone authorities that the elections would be held.

“We have in our messages also made it clear that nothing should distract from the elections as promised by the government,” he affirmed.

Sierra Leone is among the top ten recipients of the UNDP assistance and Saigal assured that the UN agency would continue to support the country, adding however, that “election is a sovereign responsibility.”

In conclusion, the ECONEC and the UNDP also agreed to work together in advocating for support in targeted areas, including training for the media, personnel involved in election-related duties, and on a longer term basis, intensify efforts to promote gender parity, to raise women’s participation and representation in the political process in the region.

The ECOWAS Commission set up ECONEC in 2008 to promote credible elections in member States and also to encourage gradual convergence of electoral laws and best practices through experience-sharing and peer-learning of good practices in electoral matters.

—  Jul 24, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT