ECES is an independent, non partisan and not for profit Foundation headquartered in Brussels with a global remit. ECES was established at the end of 2010 by the initiative of Fabio Bargiacchi, till today serving as its Executive Director. ECES has implemented activities already in more than 50 countries, mainly, but not only, in Africa, Europe and Middle East, and primarily with funding from the EU and EU Member states.
ECES promotes electoral and democratic strengthening through the provision of advisory services, operational support via innovative project and financial management methodologies. In our activities we mainsteam capacity and leadership development using peer exchanges and comparative experiences to promote dialogue and the prevention and mitigation of electoral conflicts.
ECES has crafted and copyrighted its strategy called "A European Response to Electoral Cycle Support - EURECS", which is implemented via other specific methodologies and tools that makes a total of 20 copyrights. EURECS is an innovative delivery mechanism to implement electoral and democracy assistance activities that are consistent primarily with European values and EU policies targeting the facilitation of cooperation on electoral matters between the EU, the EU member states and their partner countries.
ECES has obtained the Tcertification and ISO 9001 certifications for our financial transparency and for our quality management system. We implement our activities via a truly international, multicultural and multilgual personnel. With individuals with at least 60 different nationalities who can work in at least 30 languages we are as diverse as the electoral stakeholders we cooperate with worldwide.
This native insight and our innovator spirit make us better electoral assistance implementor and helped us foster strong relationships also because we can communicate and work in many languages and therefore understand many cultures.
ECES, together with the College of Europe as chef de file and other partners, is implementing on behalf of the EU the ERMES project, called European Resource for Mediation Support which is a strategic tool for the EU role in mediation and dialogue. ECES is providing the key expertise and the office of the project is situated within our HQ.
In this context, ECES is also a proud member of the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office network, the biggest and leading civil society European platform of 50 independent organisations and think tanks from 17 European countries committed to peacebuilding and the prevention of conflict. Since 2024, ECES has been a member of the Team Europe Democracy Initiative (TED). The initiative will establish and strengthen networks among EU institutions, EU member states, think tanks, academia, civil society organisations and other like-minded organisations in democracy support, human rights and other related areas.
