Some 14 female and 24 male young Guinean UN Volunteers have been deployed in the 33 prefectures of the country to provide technical and administrative support to the members of the Independent Prefectural Electoral Commission and the Independent Communal Electoral Commission for the next six months to achieve a peaceful and consensual election that is scheduled to take place on 4 February 2018.
The CENI has signed a partnership agreement with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through the Electoral Cycle Support Project in Guinea (PACEG). Guinea's Electoral Cycle Support Project (PACEG) was set up in 2015 and has already supported the organization of the Presidential Election of October 2015. The PACEG aims to provide assistance to strengthen organizational, technical, financial and operational capacities of the main national actors involved in the electoral process, in particular the CENI, public institutions, civil society organizations and the Guinean population, in particular, women, youth, under-represented or minority groups.
UN Volunteers are ambassadors of the United Nations in the field. Your role is to collaborate with and provide support to the teams of the CENI for the good organization of the elections. We are proud of your involvement as Guinean youth in the consolidation of the democracy in Guinea. --Lionel Laurens, UNDP Country Director in Guinea
The national UN Volunteers are assigned to UNDP and deployed directly to the offices of the Prefectural and Communal Electoral Commissions to provide preparation of administrative and technical documents, support the elaboration of the plan for securing the electoral process and the management of equipment, and assist in drafting the final report on the organization of local elections, etc.
Before their deployment to the different prefectures, all national UN Volunteers received a detailed briefing and required materials to conduct their mission. During an official ceremony at the UNDP Common House in Conakry on January 16th 2018, the UN Volunteers met Government and the UNDP representatives. Lionel Laurens, Country Director of UNDP in Guinea, welcomed the UN Volunteers and emphasized the importance of their assignment in the electoral process in the country.