ECES is proud to announce the launch of a new project in Ethiopia: the European Response to the Electoral Cycle Support in Ethiopia – Plus (EURECS +). This complements the existing projects implemented by ECES in Ethiopia as part of the EU democratic package funded by the European Union and Germany (via the German Development Bank, KFW). The EURECS+ project aims at providing further logistical and procurement support to the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) in order to contribute, together with UNDP and IFES, to their ongoing operational tasks to organize the electoral processes in Ethiopia, scheduled now on the 5th of June.
ECES Founder and Executive Director, Fabio Bargiacchi, commented:
“I am very happy and honored to see ECES being entrusted once again by Germany and the EU with the possibility to increase our contribution to the electoral operations of NEBE, in collaboration with UNDP and IFES, in a important country such as Ethiopia. Germany, after the EU, our most important donor by far. They have already financed ECES with more than 17.4 million € (either directly or via the EU Delegations), with projects in Burkina Faso, Benin, Senegal, Nigeria and now Ethiopia. We will do our utmost to implement at best the activities of EURECS+ and therefore repay the trust of Germany, the EU and NEBE.
We will continue to strive to implement electoral and democracy assistance activities that are consistent primarily with European values and EU policies targeting the facilitation of the cooperation on electoral matters between the EU, the EU member states and their partners' countries, in this case Ethiopia.
@ ECES we are proud to promote electoral and democratic strengthening through the provision of advisory services, operational support and management of large projects mainstreaming capacity and leadership development via peer exchanges and comparative experiences, dialogue and the prevention and mitigation of electoral conflicts.
We are also extremely grateful to the Paris Peace Forum given that this project is coming up after our EURECS Ethiopia project was selected as one of the 10 projects to receive their Scale Up Initiative (SCUP) support last November . We look forward to present the results of the SCUP, including for EURECS +, at the next edition of the Paris Peace Forum, on 11-13 november 2021."
EURECS+ is part of the EU “democratic package”, composed by four different interventions related to the overall context for the general elections 2021 and beyond:
- European Response to Electoral Cycle Support in Ethiopia (EURECS Ethiopia) (16.55M EURO, funded by the European Union under the European Development Fund (EDF) and by KFW on behalf of the German government and implemented by ECES), to which the amount of 3,92 million € is to be added making the overall EU and Germany contribution 20,47 million EURO;
- Prevention, mitigation and management of election-related conflicts and potential violence (PEV-Ethiopia) (3.6M EURO, funded by the European Union under the IcSP-FPI and implemented by the European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES);
- Supporting the Ethiopian Political Parties Dialogue (1.8M EURO, funded under IcSP-FPI and implemented by the Netherlands Institute for Multi-Party Democracy (NIMD));
- Establishing an environment for inclusive, knowledge-based dialogue on the political process in Ethiopia (1M EURO, funded under the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace of the Foreign Policy Instrument (IcSP-FPI) and implemented by International IDEA.