Project Summary:

The "Strengthening democratic resilience in Moldova" (phase III) project aims to fortify Moldova's democratic processes against internal and external threats such as cyber operations, information manipulation, and illicit political financing. The project focuses on three main areas: improving oversight of political finance to curb illicit activities and enhance transparency; strengthening electoral institutions to withstand cyber and information threats; deepening civic engagement to foster an informed and inclusive electorate. The project aligns with the ODIHR and Venice Commission recommendations and supports the implementation of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) and Centre for Continuous Electoral Training (CCET) Strategic Plans (2024-2027). Through collaborative efforts with government bodies, civil society, and international partners, the project seeks to build a resilient democratic framework in Moldova, ensuring the integrity and security of electoral processes while promoting inclusive participation and civic education.

Objectives:

• Improved oversight of political finance and parties, and campaigns;
• Democratic institutions strengthened and more resilient;
• Improved civic engagement and inclusivity.
   

Expected results:

• Enhanced political finance oversight by strengthening enforcement for vote-buying and providing advisory and program support to implement political finance recommendations;
• The framework for managing contestants improved through organization of stakeholder discourse activities aimed at knowledge dissemination and consensus building, as well as topical academic research;
• CEC’s digital electoral management capabilities secured and strengthened, including through support to upgrading State Automated Information System “Elections” (SAISE) to further digitize and enhance the electoral process, streamlining electoral processes and political finance oversight;
• CEC’s strategic communication capacities enhanced by developing and using new outreach, dialogue and discussion tools;
• Enhance CEC core functions which involves reducing voter registry inflation, automating CEC’s complaint management process, strengthening district electoral commissions’ capacities, particularly in political finance and results certification, and enhancing CCET operational training;
• Electoral assistance coordination via the Electoral Partners Platform further enhanced;
• Civic education system consolidated through continued support to implementing electoral education curriculum;
• Electoral processes made more inclusive by carrying out behavioural change campaigns and developing capacities of CSOs to pro-actively engage in civic and electoral education;
• Women’s political participation improved via perception change campaigns and policy and legal framework interventions;
• Tech-facilitated gender-based violence and hate speech addressed with the help of AI monitoring tools;
• Electoral information integrity in electoral processes strengthened with the use of fact-checking tools.