Overview

USAID’s Afghanistan Electoral Reform and Civic Advocacy (ACERCA) project supports informed reform of the Afghan electoral system, enhancing public confidence in the electoral process by improving transparency and enabling dialogue on political events and the performance of election institutions.   The project supports Afghan civil society’s engagement with relevant stakeholders involved in electoral reform advocacy, including government , higher education institutions,  women’s groups,  and political and non-political actors.  In addition, the project seeks to foster innovations in governance through electoral reform.

Main activities

• Developing an electoral reform agenda for effective advocacy with civil society organizations
• Conducting workshops on advocacy skills for civil society activists
• Developing civic education and outreach materials on electoral reform with civil society activists
• Providing assistance with legal drafting and regulatory framework analysis to government officials, political leaders and civil society representatives
• Conducting research on public attitudes toward political parties and political leaders and probing individual preferences on different electoral systems
• Building Afghan capacity to conduct research on electoral reform

Results to Date

• Led electoral system fact-finding missions to India, Mexico, New Zealand, and South Africa
• Established the Electoral Reform Network, a group of civil society actors, academics, political and non-political actors, and social organizations that help coordinate Afghanistan‘s civil society efforts on electoral processes and reform
• Conducted extensive workshops in Kabul and Herat on gender participation in electoral reform
• Conducted Afghanistan’s most extensive, 34-province public opinion survey on electoral issues
• Established a partnership with Kabul University’s National Center for Policy Research to create Afghanistan’s first nationwide electoral survey network
• Conducted the first nationwide electoral survey on Afghan perceptions of the electoral process.
• Conducted three training workshops on methods of electoral research for activists from 11 civil society organizations
• Conducted the first ever survey of sitting parliamentarians to gauge opinions on current electoral law and pioneered the use of iPads in data collection