USAID / RCSA - Success Stories

Support from the USAID Regional Center for Southern Africa (RCSA) to the Southern Africa Development Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC/PF), a grouping of national parliaments in Southern Africa, has created regional capacity to observe elections. RCSA funding enabled the SADC/PF to observe and monitor general and presidential elections in six SADC countries (Namibia, Mozambique, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Zambia) to serve in developing regional electoral norms and standards. The RCSA program also enlisted the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs to strengthen the capacity of the SADC/PF to monitor elections.

In April 2001, the SADC/PF adopted regional electoral norms and standards, which provide a comprehensive framework to govern the conduct of free and fair elections in Southern Africa. The region is increasingly using these standards to assess whether elections have been properly and fairly held. These standards and norms are significant because they ensure the integrity of the electoral process.

The SADC/PF used the standards to observe the voter registration process in Lesotho and the 2001 elections in Zambia. In the run-up to the Zambian elections, the SADC/PF served on an elections committee that advised the Zambian Electoral Supervisory Commission. Through that committee, the SADC/PF brought the regional electoral experience to bear on the Zambian process. The Zambian authorities heeded a recommendation by the SADC/PF to extend the voter registration period, thus allowing more voters to register.

In October 2001, a SADC/PF mission visited Tanzania to discuss recommendations made by the SADC/PF after observing elections in that country in 2000. The mission met with a broad range of stakeholders both on the mainland and in Zanzibar and recommended the use of the electoral standards to improve electoral administration. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi and the main opposition Civic United Front parties have since resolved their dispute regarding the conduct of the 2000 elections.

On October 31, 2001, Mrs. Priscilla Misihairabwi, an opposition member in the Zimbabwean parliament who was part of the SADC/PF election observation mission to Tanzania, moved that Zimbabwe use the electoral standards to conduct its upcoming presidential election. Introducing the motion she said, "I am proud that I am standing here talking about SADC Parliamentary norms and standards. These are not EU standards. These are purely African norms and standards that have been developed and designed by Africans themselves. These are not values that we are taking from elsewhere, it is the value system that we have as Africans." The motion received bi-partisan support in parliament.

Answering questions during a debate on Zimbabwe in the House of Commons in December 2001, Ben Bradshaw, the British Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, said "We welcome the commitment shown by SADC parliamentarians to democratic norms in the conduct of elections in their region, reflected in the recommendations agreed at a SADC Parliamentary Forum meeting in Windhoek in March 2001". The recent decision by the European Union to fund the SADC/PF's observer mission to Zimbabwe's presidential election is further evidence of the SADC/PF's increasing ability to influence and promote democratic performance in the region. SADC is relying on the SADC/PF to observe the Zimbabwean presidential elections.

USAID/ RCSA - Success Stories