In advance of the 2010 elections in Sudan, USIP conducted a series of electoral violence prevention workshops throughout north and south Sudan in 2009 with participants who represented key institutions that play a critical role in electoral processes. These workshops combined case studies of electoral violence with capacity building in conflict resolution and citizenship skills.
USIP’s former Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention (CAP) and Education and Training Center, International (ETC-I) conducted 10 workshops throughout Sudan in 2009, training more than 300 Sudanese citizens. Workshops took place in Khartoum (January and June 2009), Juba (April 2009), Yei (April 2009), Dilling (May 2009), El Fula (November 2009) and El Fasher (November 2009).
Workshop participants represented the institutions that often play crucial roles in a country’s electoral process: civil society, political party representatives, police and security forces, youth, media, and academic and legal professionals.
The electoral violence prevention (EVP) workshop content includes:
- Case studies of elections in Africa
- Citizenship education
- Conflict resolution skills training
The aim of the workshops was to promote an understanding of the pending elections as one small part of a long transition to a democratic system, and to underscore the importance of communication, negotiation, and pluralistic decision-making in preventing and managing violent conflict.
The case studies were designed to provide both positive and negative examples of electoral violence prevention from other elections in Africa, enabling participants to identify opportunities to prevent violence that were seized and those that were missed. The EVP workshops included case studies of Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).