KWAZULU NATAL ELECTIONS FORUM

Introduction

NGOs, working jointly with the IEC in the KwaZulu Natal Province, hosted a civil society meeting in Pennington in November 2007 to discuss the launch of the ELECTION forum as a legal entity. Key in the discussions was the Agreement on the need for the forum, in conjunction with the IEC work towards creating v are informed about elections and that are fully engaged in citizen participation regarding electoral processes and democracy development.

The seminar concluded with the agreement to formalise the establishment of KwaZulu Natal Democracy and Election Forum (KZNDEF) as a legal entity, as well as to work on a proposal with plans and budgets for mass workshops on elections and electoral processes and citizenship.

Organizational Profile

In the promotion of civic democracy education, conflict resolution and election observation and monitoring, 7 organizations have come together to form the KZNDEF to establish a framework for the sharing of resources and skills on issues of human rights, democracy and election processes. These Key organisations representaed at the Pennington meeting are:

• Democracy Development Programme (DDP)
• KwaZulu Regional Christian Council
• KwaZulu Natal CBO Network
• KwaZulu Natal Council of Churches (KZNCC) consortium
• M V Youth Network
• Practical Ministries
• South African NGO Coalition (SANGOCO-KZN)
• Community Rural Development Centre

A brief profile of each of these organisations is attached as Appendix One.

Management of the KZNDEF

1. The Democracy Development Programme (DDP) acts as the lead organisation in the Forum, and its Executive Director, Dr Rama Naidu acts as Chairman of the Forum.
2. The steering committee is tasked with operationalising all the Forums programmes and ensuring that objectives are realised within the required parameters of time, cost, quality and performance. This steering committee constitutes of the following sub-committees:

– Democracy and Voter education

– Violence monitoring

– Legal matters and Litigation

– Mediation and conflict management

– Polls observation

3. A project manager from within the lead organisation will be appointed to manage the overall implementation of the forums programme.

OVERALL OBJECTIVE

To empower youth, rural women and women in informal settlements, disinterested men who are eligible to vote, to better understand the electoral processes and to promote a culture of democracy.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE

The primary thrust of the project is democracy deepening, voter education and citizenship for youth, women in rural areas and in informal settlements and men disinterested in electoral processes and citizenship. In creating an awareness of citizenship responsibilities through community workshops sought to further encourage continuous participation in democratic development after the elections.

SPECIFIC AREAS OF FOCUS

The focus of our programme for the period December 2007 to April 2008 will focus on the following areas:

1. Awareness on the need to register as a voter (Memeza operation)

1. Awareness on the need to have a bar-coded ID in order to be able to register to vote

1. Preparing eligible voters to inspect the voters’ roll.

1. Running Educational workshops to improve the quality of the voter and the quality of voting.
2. Information sharing on a practical approach to citizenship (voting as a way to change situations, on helping communities through strengthening, supporting and coaching of structures for community on participation to exert influence on decision making processes at various levels of government.

TARGET AREAS

District	Number of Municipalities	Approximate Population
Amajuba	3	468037
Ugu	6	704028
Uthukela	5	656986
Ilembe	4	560388
Umgungundlovu	7	927845
Zululand	5	804454
Umzinyathi	4	456455
Sisonke	5	298394
Umkhanyakude	5	573341
Uthungulu	6	885966
Total	50	6335894

TARGET MUNICIPALITIES: KWAZULU NATAL

DISTRICT	MUNICIPALITY	NUMBER
UGU DISTRICT DC 21	Umuziwabantu Ezinqoleni Hibiscus Coast	KZ214 KZ215 KZ216
UMGUNGUNDLOVU DISTRICT DC 22	Umshwati Umngeni Impendle Richmond	KZ221 KZ222 KZ224 KZ227
UTHUKELA DISTRICT DC 23	Okhahlamba Imbabazane	KZ235 KZ236
UMZINYATHI DISTRICT DC 24	Endumeni Indaka	KZ241 KZ233
AMAJUBA DISTRICT DC 25	Newcastle Utrecht Dannhauser	KZ252 KZ253 KZ254
ZULULAN DISTRICT DC26	Uphongolo Abaqulusi Nongoma Ulundi	KZ262 KZ263 KZ265 KZ266
UMKHANYAKUDE DISTRICT DC 27	Hlabisa Mtubatuba	KZ 274 KZ 275
UTHUGULU DISTRICT DC 28	Umhlathuze Umlalazi Mthonjaneni	KZ282 KZ 284 KZ285
ILEMBE DISTRICT DC29	Ndwedwe	KZ293
ETHEKWINI DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY	Umbumbulu Sobonakhona- Makhanya T.A

REGION, NUMBER OF TRAINERS AND WORKSHOPS PER REGION

Region	Number of Trainers	Number of Workshops / Month
Amajuba	2	2
Ugu	2	2
Uthukela	2	2
Ilembe	2	2
Umgungundlovu	2	2
Zululand	2	2
Umzinyathi	2	2
Sisonke	2	2
Umkhanyakude	2	2
Uthungulu	2	2

 

TARGET GROUPS

The intervention will focus more on the following target audiences: Women, Youth and Traditional Leaders.

1. Men and women’s groups,
2. Organized youth groups,
3. Youth not belonging to organized structures,
4. Faith communities and people in remote rural areas,
5. Traditional structures.

• Women are a significant voting block in society. This target group has previously been excluded in the decision-making processes. They also constitute the majority number of voters.
• Youth, categorised as the leaders of tomorrow and by virtue of being change agents, constitute an important group in sustaining and strengthening our democracy.
• Traditional Leaders have always been part of the core decision-making body especially in the rural parts of the province. Their involvement would ensure the role that they have to play especially in the light of new developments

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

5. To prepare communities for 2009 government elections through conducting workshops with them.
6. To have mass consultation meetings with traditional and faith structures and their constituencies.
7. To run 200 mass educational and awareness workshops (10 Organisations x 20 mass workshops each = 200 mass workshops x R 1000 per workshop = R 200 000) promote democracy education that will deal with voter apathy and strengthening the participation of new voters.
8. To encourage citizens to register to vote whilst also participating in a campaign that will encourage potential voters to obtain identity documents.
9. To identify effective conflict resolution mechanisms before, during and after the election period.
10. To engage in election observation and monitoring in support of promoting a free and fair election process.
11. To ensure coordination between CBO, NGO structures, municipalities, the IEC and related stakeholders on election matters.

Project Requirements

To be able to deliver a programme of this magnitude, the following will be required:

• Development of a programme resulting in the design and delivery of appropriate training, communication, and information dissemination activities on areas of democracy development, citizenship, balloting education, electoral code of conduct, and post election citizen participation in governance.
• A description of how the proposed programme supports the IEC’s democracy development education strategy and national curriculum. This to be accompanied by a detailed plan to engage and collaborate with provincial stakeholders.
• The development of an implementation plan describing planned activities, timeframes, partners responsible for carrying out planned activities and how the output will be measured.
• A clear strategy on how the consortium will interface with rural voters, and how the needs of special focus groups will be addressed. The strategy should also take into account the local dynamics and sensitivities.
• Development of training materials in line with the IEC national democracy development and voter education curriculum.
• A simple performance, monitoring and evaluation plan which clearly demonstrates measures of quantity of voters to be reached and quality of programmes delivered

Deliverables

At the end of the project, the following would have been achieved:

1. Creation of a peaceful climate in the run up to the National elections in the KwaZulu Natal Province
2. Increased levels of tolerance amongst people of different political persuasions in the build up to the elections
3. Increased levels of understanding among the electorate of opportunities for citizen participation in democracy development.
4. Increased citizenship through an adequate understanding of democracy building.
5. A decrease in the percentage of apathy among youth and elderly people with regards to election electoral issues compared to the recent government elections.

Implementation plan

ACTIVITY
	Sep	Oct	Nov		Dec	Jan	Feb		Mar	Apr
Materials development
Training of Trainers
Recruitment of CCRP’s
District Training
Deployment
Monitoring
Evaluation

Entry Strategy

For the purposes of ensuring project endorsement by major stakeholders in each of the regions, the Project Management Team will hold consultative meetings with the following groups:

• Regional councils
• Regional authorities (Amakhosi)
• Transitional Local Councils
• Local Independent Electoral Commission Offices (MEOs)
• Party Liaison Committee (PLCs)
• The Independent Electoral Commission (Provincial Offices)

Identification of Regional Partners and Facilitators

Through the Forum members, partnerships have been established with Community  Based Organizations (CBO’s) and Non–Government Organizations operating within regional councils, particularly those organizations who have been identified and accredited by the IEC in the previous elections. These institutions will assist us in:

• Identifying of facilitators within the communities
• Providing easy access to communities

The Forum members in conjunction with the partner organisations will recruit facilitators. The number of facilitators per region for the TOT will be informed by the vastness of the area. In densely populated areas eight facilitators will be recruited and in sparsely populated areas six facilitators will be recruited. The selection of facilitators will be based on the following criteria:

• Political impartiality
• A good track record of community involvement
• A good understanding and interest in electoral processes

Training of Trainers (TOT)

There will be two centralized TOT workshops dividing the Province into two sub-regions with each consisting of five Districts. These two broad regions will be known as the Southern and Northern Sub-Provincial regions.  Each of these TOT workshops will be held at a centralized venue and will be attended by facilitators representing each District.

The purpose of the training of trainers’ workshop is to familiarize the trainers with the materials that have been developed for use in the training.  Over and above the trainers will be taken through training methodologies and equipped with facilitation skills.

Materials Development

The IEC together with Civic Society Organisations (CSOs) have developed election education materials on voter education.  It is envisaged that in order to avoid duplication, the forum will make use of the materials that have already been produced.  The IEC has produced a guideline for Democracy and Voter education and this document will be used as the reference for developing a more interactive training manual.

Election pamphlets and fliers will be developed in line with the IEC Democracy and Voter Education curriculum.  These materials will be produced in both English and Zulu languages to ensure that people intended by the project indeed are covered.  The content of these materials will be simplified inter-active and will use pictorials for illustration.  Participants will be handed these materials during the workshops to complement the training received and to further information dissemination.

Media Campaign

Radio

Community Radio stations will be used as an effective strategy to reach most people of  rural KwaZulu Natal. A similar strategy was used in the previous elections, and this proved to be very successful in reaching audiences in far-lying areas. This form of media has proved to be more effective than television and newspapers because most people in the rural areas cannot read. Slots and programmes will be negotiated with community radio stations and Forum members will host weekly shows on topical issues relating to the elections.

Print

Pamphlets and brochures will also be produced.  These materials will be developed on the following elections processes:

1. Democracy building and development
2. Step by step voting process

• Sample of a Ballot Paper

1. Citizenship and why people should vote

The above materials will be distributed throughout the regions at the following points:

1. Mosques, Temples
2. Schools

• Health Centres

1. Local Government offices
2. Community Centres
3. Taxi Ranks

Theatre

A street theatre, Theatre for Social Change, programme has been set-up by KZNCC and will also be implemented as part of the awareness and publicity campaign in the build up to the bar-coded ID campaign, Voter registration campaign, Supervision of Voters roll campaign and voting drive campaign.

This Street theatre group from Pietermaritzburg is being capable of developing a performance that highlights and communicates important issues relating to the elections to both the illiterate and the literate communities.

They will perform twice in each of the 5 regions on electoral processes and citizenship and development issues. They will develop performances and play in densely populated public areas around the province. It is envisaged that 10 performances will be held in the next four-month period targeting audiences of up to 600 people per performance (10 workshops x 600 people = 6000 people). These will be used as a vehicle to disseminate election related information to a large audience in a memorable manner, and encourage dispersion of the message through word-of mouth. On average each person is said to distribute a positive message to five people. Using this theory it is expected that our message will reach 30 000 people.

Information Dissemination Links

A link with other NGOs and the IEC will be created in order to monitor developments throughout the project.

Indicators

The success of this project will be assessed through the following factors:

1. Number of people reached
2. Number of stakeholders involved in the process

• The number of workshops held

1. The workshop reports and evaluation forms
2. The number of people trained in the workshops
3. Number of posters, pamphlets and publications distributed.

• Number of Street theatre performances

Management Plan

• The KZNDEF Board and the project manager will be responsible of the strategic and operational management of the project.
• A full-time project manager for this programme will be appointed by the lead organisation after the recommendation of the management board. The programme manager will be responsible for all programmatic policies and administration. The project manager will be the overall coordinator of the activities taking place in the Province for the voter education programme.
• District coordinators will be responsible for the voter education programme in each of the Districts and will manage the programme on a daily basis. District coordinators will report to the project manager and will ensure that community trainers conduct voter education workshops in designated areas.
• Forum member offices will oversee that proper coordination of activities is taking place, including monitoring of sub-contractor activities.

Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

The success of this programme lies also in the development of an effective monitoring and evaluation plan.  The project team will make use of the Ms Project to measure the activities of the project. Based on the experiences of the past local government elections and voter education programmes it is envisaged that our Monitoring and Evaluation plan will concentrate on the following:

1. Success stories of the previous voter education programmes
2. Community participation in electoral processes
3. Understanding of the electoral processes by the electorate
4. Impact of the voter education material used
5. Accessibility of services and information

Evaluation forms will be handed out to delegates after every workshop.  The following groups will be targeted for the purposes of our Monitoring and Evaluation plan.

• Youth
• Women
• Traditional leaders
• Local government structures
• NGO’s and CBO’s

The methodology used will be in the form of in – depth qualitative interviews with all the stakeholders listed above.  A set of evaluation forms will also be drafted to evaluate both the materials used during the education process and the workshops.  Over and above these the undertaking of the Monitoring and evaluation plan will be based on the principle of participation  – participatory monitoring and evaluation.

Participatory Monitoring and evaluation is a democratic process for examining the values, progress, constraints and achievements of projects by stakeholders.  It recognizes and values the subtle contributions of local peoples and empowers them to become involved and to contribute to their community development processes.

Aspects Of The Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

• Interview guide with key themes that the interview should cover
• Both written and oral interviews will be conducted and recorded.
• Materials evaluation forms

These forms will be used to evaluate the impact of the materials used through out the voter education project i.e. posters, pamphlets, and workshop materials.

• Workshop evaluation forms

Mid project and Final project reports will be compiled to assess the progress and success of the voter education project.