IFES Africa Programs

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Angolan elections

On 24 July 2006, Paul Bonicelli, deputy assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, discussed the upcoming Angolan elections in front of a US Congressional panel:

Bonicelli said the Bush administration is supporting the electoral process with a $3 million grant, in addition to the close to $8 million already devoted to supporting democracy programs in the southern African nation since 2001.
In Angola, he explained, USAID works through American nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), IFES (formerly the International Foundation for Election Systems) and Search for Common Ground, which partner with local NGOs to train election workers.
They have provided technical and project management training, as well as voter education materials, to six civil-society electoral networks in the provinces of Luanda, Benguela, Huambo, Bie, Uige and Lund-Sul, emphasizing voter registration, democratic principles and citizen rights and "promoting political dialogue." They also are providing training to Angolan political parties on codes of conduct and dispute resolution techniques, Bonicelli said.[1]

Ethiopia

Since 2001, USAID has spent close to $37 million on democracy and governance programs in Ethiopia. Half of that sum has been devoted to improving the efficiency of accounting and budgeting at the federal, state and local levels.

Shinn said that before national elections in May 2005, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and IFES (formerly the International Foundation for Election Systems) to leave Ethiopia, allegedly because they were not registered in the country.[2]

Liberia

In June 2007, the U.S.-based nongovernmental organization IFES hosted intensive trainings in Liberia to introduce the country's election officials to an innovative curriculum called Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections, or BRIDGE. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) supported the training.[3]

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