The Vice President of the European Parliament Isabelle Durant and the diplomatic representatives of 12 Countries of Central Africa inaugurated the first session of the “Leadership and Conflict Management for Electoral Administration” (LEAD), the first module of an important training dedicated to the support of the Independent Electoral Commissions of 10 countries on the African continent (including : Burundi, Central African Republic, DRC, Congo Brazzaville, Togo, Angola, Gabon, Cameroun, Sao Tome and Principe).

The event has been organized in the framework of the agreement reached between OPENET and the Ecole de Formation Electorale en Afrique Centrale, an institution founded in 2011 upon the initiative of the 10 member countries of the CEEAC – Economic Community of Central African States, which aims at the consolidation of democracy and governance in Africa, through the professionalization of managers and all stakeholders interested in the electoral process.
Thanks to the agreement signed between OPENET and EFEAC, the officials of the Independent Electoral Commissions (the structures that, in the developing countries, are in charge of safeguarding the democratic process by organizing and implementing free elections) will benefit of a distance training process based on the OPENET’s e-learning platform developed in cooperation with some Italian Universities. A system that guarantees simultaneous access to thousands of users will allows the simultaneous use of different languages (in this case : French, English, Portuguese and some local languages) at a reduced cost, taking into account the geographical areas involved and their terrestrial communication networks.
OPENET’s role was to support the production and post production of e-learning contents developed through its multimedia division, in order to guarantee a technological and educational increase of the technical structures of the different Commissions of the countries involved.
Decisive and essential was the creation of a satellite network infrastructure deployed in the 10 capital cities through that will allow to test the services dedicated to the electoral process, from data collection (through biometric recognition) to the transmission of election results.
« A great and unique organizational effort – said Filomena Cuccarese, COO of OPENET and project manager- an evident demonstration of how investing in bridging the digital divide can become a concrete factor of cultural development and allow an exchange of experiences and best practices in disadvantaged areas, sometimes even affected by civil conflicts. »