Electoral Support Project (ESP)

OVERVIEW

USAID builds trust between citizens and government, paving the way for a more peaceful, prosperous, and self-reliant Afghanistan.  We support good governance, rule of law, anti-corruption, credible and transparent elections, and a vibrant civil society and independent media.  Promoting peace and reconciliation, as well as women’s civic and political engagement, is essential to the success of these efforts. 

USAID’s Electoral Support Project helps build the capacity of Afghanistan’s electoral institutions—namely the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC)—to hold transparent elections.  The project aims to improve critical elements of election administration, including voter registration, voter list preparation, ballot printing, election material transport, and polling staff recruitment and training.  Strengthening Afghanistan’s electoral institutions is crucial to advancing the country’s long-term political stability and lays the foundation for peaceful transfers of power.  

ACTIVITIES

Working closely with the IEC and ECC, USAID is working to make peaceful, transparent elections a lasting reality for the people of Afghanistan.

• We are working with the IEC and ECC to ensure regular, accurate, and consistent public outreach before, during, and after elections.
• We are supporting Afghan institutions to streamline the electoral dispute resolution process by developing a computerized case management system that records, filters, and processes complaints more efficiently than the previous paper-based system.
• We are improving the IEC and ECC accreditation processes for candidate-affiliated poll watchers, political parties, and domestic observers, and we are working to ensure poll-watchers know their rights and responsibilities before, during, and after an election. 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Working together with the Government of Afghanistan, we have helped strengthen election administration.  During the 2019 presidential election, we helped facilitate the management of over 10 million ballots and other essential election materials by the IEC.
• During the same election, we worked with the IEC to ensure polling stations were fully-staffed. With our support, the IEC recruited and trained over 180,000 full-time and temporary poll workers ahead of election day.
• The IEC helped ensure that lists of voters were accurate and specific to polling stations; this reduced the possibility of individuals voting more than once.
• We supported the IEC to accredit almost 90,000 poll watchers, 30,000 political party observers, and 20,000 domestic observers.
• During the 2019 presidential election, the ECC successfully logged and processed the largest number of complaints ever recorded through the computerized case management system.