New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) will host a two-day international conference on the theme ‘Use of Technology and Elections Integrity’ for participants from 17 countries in New Delhi on Monday. The conference will be inaugurated by Chief Election Commissioner of India Rajiv Kumar. The concluding session will be chaired by Election Commissioner of India, Anup Chandra Pandey.
ECI, as the lead for the Cohort on ‘Election Integrity’, took a collaborative approach and invited Greece, Mauritius and IFES to be co-leads for the Cohort. ECI has invited the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and International IDEA, apart from EMBs and Government counterparts dealing with the conduct of elections worldwide.
Around 43 participants from 17 Countries including Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Chile, Croatia, Dominica, Fiji, Georgia, Indonesia, Kiribati, Mauritius, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, and Suriname and six participants from international organisations including IFES, International IDEA are expected to join. Representatives from a number of foreign missions located in New Delhi are also expected to attend the conference.
Also read: Congress red flags EC's remote EVMs, questions '30 crore migrant workers' figure
ECI is leading the Cohort on Elections Integrity which was established as a follow-up to the ‘Summit for Democracy’ held virtually in December 2021. The first international conference of the Cohort was organized on 31 Oct – 01 Nov 2022 at New Delhi on the topic ‘Role, Framework and Capacity of Election Management Bodies’ where nearly 50 representatives from the Election Management Bodies (EMBs) of 11 countries participated.
‘Summit for Democracy’, was an initiative of the US. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke at the Leaders Plenary Session on December 9, 2021. Following this Summit, a "Year of Action" was proposed with events and dialogues on themes related to Democracy. The Summit also developed two platforms - ‘Focal Groups’ and ‘Democracy Cohorts’ to facilitate participation in the Year of Action. The 2nd Summit for Democracy is scheduled to be held on 29- 30 March 2023 and co-hosted by the governments of Costa Rica, Rep. of Korea, Netherlands, Zambia and the US.
As part of the ‘Summit for Democracy’ Year of Action, India through the ECI, is leading the ‘Democracy Cohort on Election Integrity’ to share its knowledge, technical expertise and experiences with other democracies of the world. ECI, as its lead, has proposed to also provide training and capacity-building programs to Election Management Bodies (EMBs) across the world and provide technical consultancy as per the needs of other EMBs.
