CEPPS in Zambia

Since 2018, CEPPS has been working alongside local partners to encourage inclusive citizen participation and enhance the accountability and transparency of electoral processes in Zambia.

CEPPS Overarching Goals:

CEPPS partners with civil society organizations (CSOs) to strengthen domestic oversight of electoral processes and enhance civil society engagement on issues of political and electoral reform.

CEPPS Approach:

CEPPS supports local partner efforts to enhance credible and non-partisan oversight of domestic electoral processes at both the local and national levels. CEPPS provides technical and financial assistance to a local domestic observation network to train and deploy observers for parliamentary and local-level elections, as well as for critical pre-election processes such as boundary delimitation and voter registration.

To enhance inclusive participation in political processes, CEPPS works with a diverse array of CSOs to collaborate and engage with government stakeholders on legislation and electoral and political reform issues. CEPPS assists partner CSOs to strengthen their capacity for advocacy, particularly around issues pertaining to the empowerment and inclusion of traditionally marginalized populations including women, youth and persons with disabilities.

To support sustainable youth political leadership in Zambia, CEPPS has worked with political party youth wings and youth led CSOs to provide leadership training and develop platforms for cross-party youth engagement and exchange.

CEPPS Key Achievements in Zambia:

CEPPS strengthens domestic oversight of electoral processes through:

Training and support for local observation partners who have recruited, trained and deployed more than 200 short- and long-term election observers to support local elections and the boundary delimitation process. The resulting reports have been used to publicly disseminate observation findings and to advocate for greater transparency and accountability around electoral processes.

CEPPS enhances the inclusion of women, youth, persons with disabilities, and other marginalized groups in conversations around electoral reforms by:

Supporting civil society groups representing traditionally marginalized populations to develop and present submissions to parliamentary committees on the creation of a mixed member electoral system, which aims to increase the representation of women, youth, and persons with disabilities in parliament.
Facilitating engagement between its local observation partner and civil society groups representing persons with disabilities (PWDs) to promote greater inclusion in election observation and in advocacy on electoral reforms.

CEPPS develops platforms for youth leadership development by:

Supporting its local civil society partner to hold two rounds of inter-party youth debates, providing a platform for 80 youth to discuss critical issues affecting youth representation and participation in Zambia’s political and electoral processes. The debates provided participants with an opportunity to hone critical leadership skills as well as to develop and discuss creative solutions to increase youth political participation.