As an indispensable foundation of democracy, elections avail the citizens the opportunity to exercise their franchise and participate in shaping how their society is governed. Competitive and democratic elections are central to democratic consolidation, political stability, and legitimacy. Yiaga Africa has a four-pronged approach to election-related programming.
To facilitate data-driven elections programming, Yiaga Africa conducts quantitative and qualitative research on elections in Africa. In addition to contributing to the body of knowledge on elections, Yiaga Africa’s electoral research efforts drive advocacy on electoral reforms undertaken by election management bodies, parliaments, civil society, media, etc. Yiaga Africa’s research findings are published in monographs, policy briefs, reports, magazines, and newsletters
In pursuit of its goal of enhancing the quality of elections, Yiaga Africa deploys citizen observers through Watching The Vote, a movement of citizen election observers, to observe the conduct of elections at the international and country level. This is informed by the ardent need to deepen electoral integrity and accountability. Our election observation programs cover key election activities like voter registration, political party congresses and candidate nomination processes, election day, and post-election audits.
Yiaga Africa delivers electoral assistance to election management bodies to improve their capacity to manage electoral operations, voter education, communications, and stakeholder engagement. Yiaga Africa supports election management bodies and electoral institutes through capacity development programs and electoral policy design.
Yiaga Africa promotes active and sustained citizens’ participation in the electoral process through campaigns, workshops, web-based tools, and traditional media. Yiaga Africa also runs periodic civic camps for first-time voters in addition to democracy clubs established in high schools to mobilise young people for civic leadership.