Afghan election officials being trained at Indian facility

A batch of election officials from Afghanistan has commenced training at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM), the training and resource centre of the Election Commission of India (ECI).  The special two-week course titled “Capacity Development for Election Management” has been designed for senior officials of Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan.  The course has been organized with support from Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.  This is the latest in the series of ECI’s initiatives to share experience, skills and expertise with its counterparts in the South Asian Region.  ECI is currently the Chair of the Forum of Election Management Bodies of South Asia.

 Addressing the delegates on the first day of two-week training programme, Chief Election Commissioner of India, Mr. V. S. Sampath told the Afghanistan officials that Election Commission of India considers them as Master Trainers who could, in turn, train other Trainers at the district / assembly level ahead of elections in their country next year. He mentioned that the Commission would like to see that even the last field-level election official in Afghanistan derives benefit from the knowledge gained by the participants during this training programme.