Weekly Report June 7th to 13th, 2018

Section One: Headlines

UNDP’s Civic and Voter Education Youth Volunteers (UNVs) speed up their civic and
voter education activities nationwide, reaching out to women, youth and marginalized
communities, to spread voter education/information on aspects including, but not
limited to, poll day preparedness and encouraging women voter turnout in the
upcoming General Elections.
Figure 1: Community women of Village Mithi in Lasbela, Balochistan received voter education through a

session on ‘Polling process’ conducted by UNV, Ms. Saba Haider. Saba, explained the polling process to the
women with help from UNDP’s Civic and Voter Education Guide. She also spoke to some male members of the
community to encourage them to facilitate women of their village in reaching to the polling stations in the
upcoming General Elections.

UNDP, in collaboration with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), conducted

additional “Orientation Sessions for Assistant Presiding Officers (APOs) and Polling
Officers (POs) for General Elections 2018” in Punjab and Balochistan.

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Figure 2: ECP Master Trainer is facilitating a session on “Responsibilities of Polling Personnel” with the
female polling officers during the UNDP/SELP-supported ECP Orientation Session, held in Faisalabad,
Punjab.

Section Two: Activities

UNDP/SELP supported extra orientation sessions for Assistant Presiding Officers

(APOs) and Polling Officers (POs) concludes in Punjab and Balochistan

UNDP/SELP, in collaboration with the ECP, organized additional Orientation sessions for
Assistant Presiding Officers (APOs) and Polling Officers (POs) for General Elections 2018
in Punjab and Balochistan. These orientation sessions were held from June 5 th to 12th,
2018. Under this activity, a total of 8,016 (Punjab: 7,611, Balochistan: 405) APOs and POs
were trained. These sessions were facilitated by ECP Master Trainers. UNDP, with support
from United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), provided the operational
support during these orientation sessions. Prior to this, scheduled orientation sessions for
APOs and POs were held in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Punjab and Balochistan
from April 23rd to May 15th ,2018.

Below are details of the additional Orientation Session held:

Date Province District No of Sessions Participants
APOs POs Total
Lahore 154 2,767 941 3,708
Punjab Faisalabad 167 2,011 1,892 3,903
Hernai 02 11 06 17

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 June 5-12, 2018 Balochistan Lorali 09 229 71 300
Barkhan 02 16 13 29
Zhob 03 59 0 59
Total 337 5,093 2,923 8,016

Figure 3: ECP Master Trainer briefs the participants on ‘setting a polling station‘, during the UNDP/SELP-
supported ECP Orientation Session held in Lahore, Punjab.

UNDP/SELP, in collaboration with ECP, supports trainings of Presiding Officers (PrOs)

and Senior Assistant Presiding Officers (Sr. APOs) for General Elections-2018 in ICT,
Punjab and Balochistan

UNDP/SELP, is collaborating with ECP to organize Trainings of Presiding from June 25th
to July 15th, 2018 with additional operational support from UNOPS. In this backdrop,
UNOPS has finalized following arrangements for the training of PrOs and Sr. APO: training
plan and training material distribution plan, training materials including training kits
(participant kit and trainer kit), standardized training menus, orientation of
Implementing Partners (IPs), Divisional Training Coordinators (DivTCs) and District
Training Coordinators (DTCs). UNOPS has prepared and dispatched participants’ training
kits and trainers’ to implementing partners (IPs) in all districts.

Below is the number of participants to be trained under this training activity:

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 Punjab Balochistan Total
No. of PrOs/Sr.
APOs 102,413 9,263 111,676

KP/FATA Sindh Total

No. of PrOs/Sr.
APOs 30,513 37,269 67,782

Update on Women NIC and Voter Registration Campaign

 UNDP and Trust for Democratic Education and Accountability (TDEA) have signed an
amendment to the project cooperation agreement for the Women NIC and Voter
Registration Campaign extending from June 2018 to January, 2019. To this regard,
TDEA submitted a proposal and budget for this extension.

Update on Voter Education and Voter Information Campaign

 UNDP/SELP and Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI)-Tabeer are
coordinating with the ECP to launch a nationwide voter education and voter
information campaign. The campaign will be aimed to encourage voters and give
them key information to help them cast their votes. The mediums, which will be
used to disseminate information would include, but will not be limited to, the
production and airing of a TV advert and radio messages, information, education and
communication material, text and voice messages.

 UNDP SELP Team along with the firm engaged for creative services, had an initial
brainstorming session with the Director General Information Technology, Muhammad
Khizer Aziz, from the ECP on possible content for RMS and RTS outreach material.
The intent of the outreach material is to address possible questions that may arise
by stakeholders on the use by the ECP of using these technologies.

Support for Information Technology for General Elections 2018:

 IT Expert: UNDP RMS Advisor, Mr. Ronan McDermott, has arrived to support the ECP’s
final planning and implementation of RMS nationwide. Mr. McDermott will remain
through the elections.
 RMS Web hosting: PTCL has handed over the web hosting servers to UNDP/ECP IT
team, verification of which is in process. Upon completion of verification process,
Result Management System (RMS) deployment will begin and then Host servers will
be handed over to firm, ‘Kualitatum’ for load testing and performance.

 Wireless Connectivity of RO offices: All 849 offices of ROs are now connected to
the Internet through PTCL EVO or Telenor connections.

 Wired Connectivity of RO offices: 632 Wired connections have been installed at RO

offices across the country (427: Provincial Assembly RO Offices, 205: National
Assembly RO Offices)

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  Help desk Setup: ‘Teqbrains International’ has been awarded the service contract
for management of Help desk services for RO offices to handle trouble-shooting of
RMS during election period. Teqbrains has established toll-free number for all RO’s.

Karachi Mentorship program; mentees get hands on assignments on allocation of

provincial assembly seats, voter turnout and important constituencies

As part of a three-month mentorship program on election reporting, graduates of

journalism and mass communication in Karachi are making progress and exploring
various aspects of the general election. Mentorship Group-1 from Karachi held another
meeting last week, and mentees shared their progress over given assignments. The
mentor reviewed views of citizens gathered by the students to access voting trends. The
group will next work on manifestos of political parties contesting in forth coming general
election. The allocation of assembly seats across the province was explained by the
mentor and the delimitation of national and provincial assembly, overlapping of district
boundaries, maximum and minimum population for each national and provincial
assembly seats was also discussed. Mentees are also preparing to study voter turnout in
previous general elections in Karachi. The next meeting will focus on profiles of different
candidates.

Figure 4: Mentees of Group-1 discuss their assignments on feedback collected from general public on voting
trends under UNDP/UNESCO-supported three-month Mentorship Program on Election Reporting.

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 Mentorship Group-2 also met last week and deliberated on election procedure, media
ethics, and concept of impartial election coverage. The names and profiles of election
participants, nomination papers were discussed at length. The mentees were tasked
with making reports on important consistencies including NA 243 and NA 246 and to
study history of these constituency in relation with public opinion.

Figure 5: Mentees of Group-2 gathered to deliberate on election procedure, media ethics, and
concept of impartial election coverage as part of their assignments under UNDP/UNESCO-supported
three-month Mentorship Program on Election Reporting.

UNDP-UNV Civic and Voter Education Outreach through UN Civic and Voter
Education Youth Volunteers (UNVs)

Unique and interesting delivery methodologies are being adopted by UNVs to deliver
their messages, including street awareness campaigns, newspaper articles, and lectures
in educational institutions to spread civic and voter information across the country.

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 Figure: 6 UNV Aneesa Kafait, delivering an awareness session on the ‘Importance of women’s vote’ to a
group of 25 young women working at a vocational center run by a local Non-Governmental Organization
(NGO) in Multan, Punjab. During the session, Aneesa sensitized the women on their rights and
responsibilities and motivated them to participate in the electoral process by exercising their right to
vote.

Figure 7: UNV, Mr. Syed Hilal Hussain Shah, wrote an opinion piece in Urdu titled ‘The
cruciality of women’s inclusion in the electoral process’ in the local ‘Daily Sargaram’

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 published from Abbottabad and circulated in all of the Hazara Division, KP. In the
article, Hilal Hussain highlighted the importance of women’s inclusion in the electoral process
stressing over the decisive role women’s vote could play in the outcome of the elections. A relationship
between development and prosperity of the nation through female participation was established through
the article. Moreover, Hilal Hussain briefly described efforts of UNDP and ECP to ensure women’s
inclusion in the democratic process through their Women NIC and Voter Registration Campaign to reduce
the gender gap between men and women voter registration in the electoral roll.

Figure 8: UNV Muhammad Imran Shahzaib, guided a group of male youth on the ‘Polling process’ at Goll
Bagh, Multan, Punjab. In the picture, Imran is introducing the audience to the 8300 SMS service of ECP
with the help of a chart, additionally he helped some participants locate their names in the electoral list
through the service. A variety of questions were asked by the audience during the session related to the
polling process, folding of the ballot paper, transfer of vote from one constituency to another etc. The
participants showed great interest in the topics discussed in the session and according to them it helped
them understand the polling process in a direct way.

Section Three: Upcoming Plan

Next Week (June 14th to 20th, 2018)

 UNDP with DAI/Tabeer will continue to plan and coordinate, with ECP, to launch the
voter information/education campaign in late June 2018.
 Civic and Voter education activities by UNVs will continue in their communities
during last days of Ramadan, before Eid.
 Arrangements will be made in collaboration with UNOPS to organize and launch
Trainings of Presiding Officers (PrOs) and Senior Assistant Presiding Officers (Sr. APOs)
for General Elections-2018 in ICT, Punjab and Balochistan

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