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Good Practices and Innovations in Public Governance 2003-2011

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2010 Category 2: Australia<br />

Lessons Learned<br />

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to BRIDGE’s success was resistances to the new approach<br />

for help<strong>in</strong>g electoral adm<strong>in</strong>istrators improve their service delivery. The <strong>in</strong>novative<br />

BRIDGE methodology represented a major departure from the prescriptive<br />

operational-tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g approach that had previously predom<strong>in</strong>ated <strong>in</strong> the <strong>in</strong>ternational<br />

electoral l<strong>and</strong>scape. All BRIDGE partners therefore had to advocate for the new,<br />

comparative, values-based approach that BRIDGE embodied. Much work was done<br />

with the United Nations <strong>and</strong> with AusAID <strong>and</strong> other donors, <strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>ternational forums,<br />

to expla<strong>in</strong> the benefits of such an approach.<br />

Apart from advocat<strong>in</strong>g for the methodology of BRIDGE, another central strategy was<br />

promot<strong>in</strong>g the notion of electoral adm<strong>in</strong>istration as a profession, both to the adm<strong>in</strong>istrators<br />

themselves <strong>and</strong> to potential implementers <strong>and</strong> funders. A related strategy was<br />

to have all BRIDGE facilitators <strong>and</strong> implementers’ model professionalism <strong>and</strong> diplomacy.<br />

The partners <strong>in</strong> the project believed that if the highest st<strong>and</strong>ards were ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed<br />

from the outset, BRIDGE would “sell itself”. This has proven to be the case.<br />

In the decade s<strong>in</strong>ce BRIDGE was <strong>in</strong>troduced to the world of elections, there have<br />

been numerous reviews of the curriculum <strong>and</strong> possible modes of implementation.<br />

Client satisfaction is constantly reviewed, <strong>and</strong> client feedback has led to changes.<br />

The most obvious is that the number of election-based modules has been exp<strong>and</strong>ed<br />

from 10 to 23, to meet clients’ stated needs <strong>and</strong> provide clients <strong>and</strong> facilitators with<br />

more choice when build<strong>in</strong>g their programmes.<br />

The facilitator tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g curriculum has also gone through a series of changes to <strong>in</strong>corporate<br />

client feedback. There is now much more emphasis on the customization <strong>and</strong><br />

writ<strong>in</strong>g of materials. This has enabled facilitators to become proficient <strong>in</strong> build<strong>in</strong>g<br />

BRIDGE programmes that are specific to the needs of each context <strong>in</strong> which BRIDGE<br />

is used. This has <strong>in</strong>variably led to more client satisfaction.<br />

The biggest change recently is that as the new democracy <strong>and</strong> governance modules<br />

of BRIDGE are be<strong>in</strong>g developed, a more comprehensive approach is be<strong>in</strong>g taken to<br />

collect basel<strong>in</strong>e client satisfaction data. The BRIDGE partners have engaged an evaluation<br />

expert, who is also an accredited BRIDGE facilitator, to redesign methods for<br />

assess<strong>in</strong>g client satisfaction <strong>and</strong> improv<strong>in</strong>g education outcomes. This <strong>in</strong>volves the<br />

collection of a great deal more data before workshops <strong>and</strong> then match<strong>in</strong>g it with postworkshop<br />

data <strong>in</strong> order to evaluate changes <strong>in</strong> participants’ attitudes, skills <strong>and</strong><br />

knowledge. This process is <strong>in</strong> its early stages, but it is likely to be applied to all aspects<br />

of the BRIDGE curriculum <strong>and</strong> its implementation.<br />

The plann<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> governance of BRIDGE have been reviewed regularly, first by the<br />

Expert Advisory Group <strong>and</strong> now by the BRIDGE Partner Committee (BPC). The<br />

BPC is itself a product of this review. The Expert Advisory Group had always been,<br />

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