On October 15, 2015, the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Georgia and the Center of Electoral Systems Development, Reforms and Trainings (CEC Training Center) summarized the pilot project “Electoral Development Schools 2015

Tamar Zhvania, the CEC Chairperson, Natia Zaalishvili, the Training Center Director and Nermin Nisic, Chief of Party of International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) made opening remarks at the meeting. The 30 specially trained trainers, who are District Election Commission members at the same time, also participated in the meeting.

Due to the high interest of youth, the three courses of Electoral Development Schools 2015 were implemented instead of one. In total 627 youth received the knowledge on electoral issues during the three stages. The schools were conducted in 10 election districts (Telavi, Gurjaani, Akhaltsikhe, Marneuli, Gori, Rustavi, Kutaisi, Zugdidi, Ozurgeti, and Batumi).

The election systems, election administration, democratic electoral principles, elective bodies in Georgia, electoral stakeholders, transparency of elections, election accessibility and gender equality issues is an incomplete list of the topics covered during the trainings.

The pilot project was implemented by the CEC and the Training Centre, in cooperation with the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA) and International Foundation of Electoral Systems (IFES) and with the financial support of the Council of Europe (CoE) and US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The CEC and the Training Centre plans to expand the electoral development schools and cover the whole Georgia. The project will give the election administration representatives an opportunity to share their professional experience with more youth and increase their motivation for further involvement in election processes.