West Africa / Strategies for financing elections in West Africa to be agreed at regional workshop in Cotonou
COTONOU, Benin, June 25, 2008/African Press Organization (APO)/ — ECOWAS and the Open Society for West Africa (OSIWA) are jointly organizing a stakeholder workshop in Cotonou to agree on a mechanism for improving election financing in West Africa through increased collaboration between national electoral commissions of Member States and their ministries of finance.
Fifty participants, mostly budget officers of the electoral commissions of Member States, budget officers in the ministries of finance, civil society organizations active in elections and regional experts, are attending the workshop which opens on Thursday, 26th June 2008.
The two-day workshop will discuss issues in election financing by development partners, elements of budget preparation, identification of the constraints associated with the preparation of electoral budgets, the role of the ministry of finance in organizing elections and tools for electoral budgeting.
Participants will also undertake a comparative analysis of election financing in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Sierra Leone and develop a model budget for elections for Member States.
SOURCE : Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS)