Chief Election Commissioner of India Shri Sushil Chandra today addressed the Officials of Bangladesh Election Commission (BEC) at India International Institute of Democracy & Election Management, New Delhi. IIIDEM under the aegis of Election Commission of India is organizing the Capacity Development Programme for the BEC officials as part of Strengthening and Capacity Development of Election Commission Secretariat project (SCDECS) of the Bangladesh Election Commission.
Addressing the officials, Chief Election Commissioner Shri Sushil Chandra said that IIIDEM, as the dedicated training institute of ECI, has been organizing a series of such Capacity Development Programmes for officials from various Election Management Bodies (EMBs). So far IIIDEM has trained officials from over 90 countries. Recently a 2-weeks training programme was also organized for officials of the National Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone. A-WEB research centre for coordinating capacity building courses for A-WEB member countries is also housed at IIIDEM. CEC while interacting with the participants added that these training sessions provide a platform to share and mutually learn best practices in election management. Such courses also provide an opportunity for officials to get a good exposure of each other’s methodology of conducting elections.
A total of 50 BEC officials are to be trained at IIIDEM as part of this Capacity Development Programme. In the first phase during November 29- December 10, 2021, 25 BEC officials had undergone the training and the second batch of 25 BEC officials will be joining the training programme starting December 20, 2021 onwards. This is the first ever international batch being hosted by IIIDEM on a cost sharing basis with the BEC Secretariat. During the training programme, sessions on various aspects of election management including Electoral Administration, Voter Registration process, District Plans & Vulnerability mapping, Election Day monitoring including use of c-VIGIL app were held. As part of the field visits during the training programme, the Officials visited a Voter Registration Centre at Agra.