Overview
 

The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) promotes democratic stability by providing technical assistance and applying field-based research to the electoral cycle worldwide to enhance citizen participation and strengthen civil societies, governance and transparency.

Every IFES project is staffed by national personnel, international experts and partnered with local organizations. This homegrown approach ensures the expertise IFES offers fits the needs of the country or client and the benefit of assistance outlasts the life of the project.
 

Ukraine 

Working closely with the Central Election Commission (CEC) and non-governmental partners alike, since 1994, IFES has been instrumental in contributing to electoral law improvement through promoting stakeholder debate, participation in election sector meetings and release of thematic papers for discussion. IFES continually seeks to engage civil society, the media and the public. This included sponsoring conferences on the role of the media in elections; cooperating with political and legal reform CSOs, such as the Agency for Legislative Initiatives; and engaging the public in adult and youth-oriented grassroots civic and voter education campaigns. 

Project Highlights

Public Opinion Research: Focuses on public opinion research survey and providing professional assistance in the areas of voter registration and electoral legal reform. Since 1994, IFES conducted 17 annual nationwide surveys of public opinion to gauge long-term progress towards achieving democracy. Survey data and results are disseminated to NGOs, political parties and voters. 

The 2009 survey IFES focused on electoral preferences of the Ukrainian public to gain in-depth information on prevailing attitudes toward the 2010 presidential election and major socio-political developments in Ukraine. The 2010 annual survey will introduce a new series of new questions that will probe issues related to democracy, rights and freedoms, and assess how the new Ukrainian government’s performance is impacting people’s opinions in these areas. 

Debate on Electoral Reform: Contributing to electoral reform debate in the country, IFES widely distributed electoral issue papers ranging from presidential election law reform to voter registration and election commissions’ composition. IFES also conducted a training needs assessment of the election management bodies to provide the CEC training section with a planning document for the next presidential election and beyond.