Report on ACEEEO Secretariat’s Activities
(January, 2001)
This month was dedicated to the closing of the last year and to the preparations for the activities of the current year. Last year was a successful period in the life of the Association. The year 2001 will be very important for our Association because we shall celebrate the ten years jubilee of the foundation of the ACEEEO.
The Association identified and approached the following goals in 2000:
At the end of 2000 the Secretariat decided to redesign and reconstruct the web site of the ACEEEO. We would like to provide a more informative, updated and more user friendly web site. The result of the work will be available at the end of March, 2001.
Our latest annual conference was held in June, 2000 in Warsaw (Poland). Its leading motto was “The Information Technology in the Elections” 180 participants were present at the conference from 26 countries. The General Assembly accepted the amendments to the Charter. The conference acknowledged that the representatives of the South Eastern European countries confirmed their willingness to establish a regional association as a group of ACEEEO. Macedonia and Turkey became new institutional members of the ACEEEO (now the total number of ACEEEO’s members is 18). During the conference the Secretariat requested the member countries to correct and to develop continuously the database created by the Essex project (election related database based on Central and Eastern Europe). The Assembly adopted a recommendation on the ways of IT development concerning the elections.
The Secretariat of ACEEEO is working on how to reach out for potential partners in Western Europe. This work is aimed at identifying potential new members, as well. For example in the Northern region (Denmark, Sweden, Finland) we are trying to increase the number of our members. It is a real perspective as the actual president of the European Union is Swedish. (He is a supporter of the enlargement of the EU, so the political atmosphere is really positive.)
The Association hired one full-time staff member in the year 2000. His name is Máté RADICS and he is a young and talented economist. His main task is to manage the functioning of the Secretariat and to deal with the realisation of different projects of the Association and also to identify and to approach new potential donors. With his help we built up a database of potential grantors. With the help and co-operation of IFES (International Foundation for Election Systems) a study tour was organised for him in Washington D.C. to learn more about fundraising.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina elections were held in April and in October, 2000. 180 election experts participated at these elections as international polling supervisors who were chosen from our expert database. Facing new challenges we sent 17 persons for a long term mission (at least 3 weeks) to BiH. The US Embassy in Hungary and the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre were our partners in preparing those missions.
The Secretariat compiled the list of 62 International Polling Supervisors for the OSCE who were sent Kosovo to take part at the municipal elections in October, 2000.
An ACEEEO’s delegation travelled to Strasbourg in September to have negotiations with officials of the Council of Europe concerning the international monitoring of the elections in Kosovo. The previous goal of the ACEEEO that was to achieve a leading role in managing the international monitoring, has failed. However at the end of negotiations ACEEEO got the right to send 3 Short-term International Observers to Kosovo. The ACEEEO is the only NGO which had an active role in the election observation under the auspices of the Council of Europe. Also the ACEEEO has got a good chance to obtain a consultative NGO status of the Council of Europe.
Our Association was also represented by international observers at the elections in the Ukraine, in Croatia and also at U.S. Presidential Elections. At the end of 2000 our organisation was part of the international monitoring mission during the parliamentary elections in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. More about the missions: www.aceeeo.com
This January
The Secretariat has worked together with the Croatian National Election Board to take the preliminary steps in organizing the Executive Board Meeting of ACEEEO on the Island in Brijuni (Croatia).
The Secretariat also made steps to be able to provide the necessary financial background to its own activities. In order to get a financial support we shall approach grantors whose names can be found in our grantors’ database. These grantors are interested in the Eastern and Central European region and also in activities related to elections. Our plan in 2001 can be described with the following cornerstones:
Budapest, 12 February, 2001
Secretariat of ACEEEO