As part of the Project to Support Electoral Processes in Burkina Faso (PAPE) executed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UNV recruited and trained 49 national UN Volunteers and 62 UN Community Volunteers to support the 45 provinces of Burkina Faso during the combined elections in November 2020.
UN Volunteers contributed to essential tasks, including logistics organization, recruitment, and training of members of voting stations in preparing for the election last November. Some of the UN Volunteers also coordinated communication with the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) for the upcoming voting.
The 62 UN Community Volunteers assisted the local commissions in the reception of election materials and documents, their packaging, and effective distribution, in collaboration with the polling stations.
"The Community UN Volunteers did a remarkable work during logistics deployment. We appreciate their commitment to achieving the goal we all aimed at having democratic and successful elections. ", said Salif Thiombiano the CENI's Logistics Director
A UN Volunteer preparing for the election in Burkina Faso in November 2020.
We were involved in the implementation and monitoring of all activities: awareness campaigns, supervising voting, counting of ballots, posting of the results, etc. We were also in charge of the reporting during the pre-election, election, and post-election phases. "Alima Ouedraogo Ba, National UN Volunteer, Legal Affairs Officer.
The 2020 elections were conducted transparently and were well prepared. The UNDP/UNV partnership strengthened local structures and facilitated the process. UN Volunteers sometimes even helped build trust and foster synergy among local teams.
Despite the health crisis, the UN Volunteers made a significant contribution, which was strongly highlighted by our partners during the post-elections capitalization workshop. Matthieu Ciowela, Resident Representative, UNDP Burkina Faso.
Like Burkina Faso; Niger and the Central Africa Republic also benefited from the work of UN Volunteers in hosting their elections in 2020.