The third Africa Regional Training Event for Commonwealth Electoral Professionals (CEP) opened in Accra on Monday.

It is tailored to address regional needs and priorities in delivering more inclusive, credible and transparent electoral processes and elections.

The five-day event is being attended by 14 Election Management Bodies (EMB) from across the African continent, being organised in collaboration with the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana with support from the Australian Embassy.

Participating countries include Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique,Mauritius, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Uganda.

Topics to be discussed during the training workshop include Gender and Social Inclusion Perspective, public information and communications as essential ingredients for credible elections and managing stakeholder confidence in the post-election environment.

The programme, also aimed at boosting electoral democracy in commonwealth Africa is on the theme ‘delivering credible and inclusive elections in the era of COVID-19: building public trust and confidence throughout the electoral cycle.’

In his address, the deputy EC chairman, Mr Samuel Tettey, stated that all EMBs were mandated to deliver elections that reflected the free expression of the will of the people.

To achieve this, he said elections must be transparent, inclusive and accountable to strengthen public confidence and trust.

He mentioned that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic presented some challenges to the smooth conduct and management of elections in the sub-region, in its quest to deliver credible elections.

Ghana’s 2020 elections, he said, had been hailed globally as transparent and successful, due to the efficient manner they were conducted inspite of the pandemic.

Mr Tetteyurged participants to appreciate the experiences of other countries by adopting good lessons.

“You need to enhance your professional performance because election management and administration had become knowledge-based since electoral stakeholders are becoming sophisticated,” he added.

On his part, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr GodfredYeboah Dame said the organisation of truly free, fair and transparent elections not only required the participation of the citizenry and key organs of the state like the judiciary, legislature and the executive, but also a keen consciousness of the constitutional functions of the EC and limitations placed on its power.

He further stated that democracy might have its imperfections but was still indispensable.

“I agree that COVID-19 has changed the world, however it did not fundamentally alter the aspirations of the people to live under a democracy, neither did it materially change the basic duty of the EC in any country to hold elections,” he said.

“Elections must be held even under trying conditions forced upon the world by COVID-19,” he added.