Research and Capacity building

Research and capacity building to various electoral stakeholders including member civil society organizations, political parties, and the media on a wide array of political participation, election related, peacebuilding and democracy thematic areas are among the core mandates of CECOE. CECOE’s capacity building initiatives are geared towards enhancing the participation of citizens in political processes. It forms an essential area of focus for CECOE’s programmatic activities during and in-between elections. In line with its core mandate, CECOE has been engaging in capacity building of its member organizations in areas of election observation and monitoring, peace building and conflict mitigation, and women’s political participation.

As part of its election observation program, CECOE developed training manuals, observation checklists for observers it trained and deployed during its observation of the Sidama referendum, the Sixth General elections, the South-West Ethiopia Referendum and the South Ethiopia referendum. CECOE has planned, coordinated and executed more than 100 training sessions to observers in ten regions and two city administrations, excluding the Tigray Region. CECOE’s capacity building interventions for observers recruited from its member organizations are implemented throughout the full electoral cycle. Following the 2021 general elections, CECOE organized 10 capacity building learning workshops where it disseminated its observation findings to its member organizations in Addis Ababa, Jigjiga, Jimma, Kombolcha, Dire Dawa, Arba Minch, Hawassa, and Bahri Dar cities where it sensitized its member organizations on elections, election observation, methodologies in election observation, observation findings and challenges in the overall election observation. 

Moreover, CECOE has been working in capacity building of its member organizations on peacebuilding and conflict mitigations. CECOE has developed a comprehensive peacebuilding and conflict mitigation manual through the technical assistance of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) CECOE has implemented peacebuilding and conflict mitigation capacity building workshops in Hawassa, Adama, Bahir dar and Dire Dawa cities jointly with its member organizations. 

Currently, CECOE is implementing a project on Women’s political participation in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for MultiParty Democracy (NIMD) funded by the European Union which consists of a series of capacity building initiatives for women in various positions. CECOE’s capacity building under the project will reach more than 2000 Ethiopian women in CSOs, schools, media and governmental bodies to enhance women’s political participation.