Background

Following a national request for assistance from the Solomon Islands Government, the UNDP Strengthening the Electoral Cycle in the Solomon Islands Project (SECSIP) project was developed and will be implemented from 2013-2015. A principle focus is to assist and coordinate with other development partners and electoral stakeholders in the development of a sustainable, cost effective and inclusive voter registration system to ensure the integrity of the 2014 vote. Strengthening the institutional and management capacity of the SIEC, through the improvement of the electoral administration as a whole, is also a key priority. The project also aims to develop synergies and partnership with a range of national partners to ensure that the broader enabling environment is also supported in having elections contribute to broader democratic development.

While the Solomon Islands has held a number of national and local elections since independence in 1978, weak institutions, staff capacity, poor infrastructure, a widespread archipelago and limited resources all exist as core challenges to sustainable electoral and political process. Central to the integrity of the electoral process is the electoral roll. The Solomon Islands Electoral Commission (SIEC) has been legally mandated to develop a new voter roll before the election in 2014, and the Ministry of Home Affairs which the SIEC sits under institutionally is supportive of this process. The Office of the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission (OSIEC) will, in 2013, conduct voter registration in the over 900 polling centres that were used for the 2010 elections after the European Union Electoral Expert Mission in 2010 described the voter roll used for those elections as “highly inflated”. The voter registration exercise will also act as a test for the SIECS ability to implement the electoral event in 2014.
 
In 2013 the Solomon Islands Government adopted a Biometric Voter Registration system, while technical support will be provided by the supplier the SIEC requires technical assistance to support the completion of a voter registration strategy, including training of voter registry staff, data management and preparation of the final voter roll.

Duties and Responsibilities

Functions / Key Results Expected:

The Voter Registration Expert will support the SIEC and UNDP to deliver a sustainable voter registration system created to strengthen the inclusiveness and integrity of the electoral cycle through the following tasks: 
  • Provide technical support to the national electoral authorities engaged in voter registration;
  • Support operational, procurement and logistical plans for the voter registration exercise, and up-date exercises;
  • Assist in the development of gender balanced Terms of Reference and recruitment strategies for voter registration officials;
  • Assist in the recruitment of electoral/VR officials;
  • Support the development and implementation of training plan for voter registration officials that forms part of a broader training programme resulting in a pool of qualified electoral officials. Training should focus on data collection, maintenance of the VR data-base;
  • Provide technical support for the development and implementation of BVR communications public outreach strategy;
  • Support to the implementation of voter registration exercise including initial registration phase, the objections and corrections period;
  • Provide support to the national electoral authorities on the input and cleaning of voter registration data;
  • Provide support to the national electoral authorities in the preparation of the final voter roll;
  • Provide input to a national lessons learned process following the voter registration exercise;
  • Advise the SIEC on upcoming electoral processes, including design and setup of the centralized data center, voter registration, electoral district delimitation, candidate nomination, ballot design and preparation, tally center design and setup, and election results tallying and reporting.
Deliverables:
  • Support the development of voter registration roll-out plan in coordination with Government Officials and BVR technical team;
  • Input into the Voter Registration recruitment plan;
  • Support the development of Voter Registration Official Training Manuals;
  • Support to the development and implementation of Voter Registration ToT strategy;
  • Support to the development and implementation of Voter Registration monitoring strategy.
  • Provide capacity building for key Government stakeholders in the operation and implementation of BVR.

Competencies

  • Proficiency in both spoken and written English and pidgin;
  • Strong inter-personal skills, in particular, excellent oral and written communication skills;
  • Demonstrates capacity to plan, prioritize and deliver tasks on time to meet goals in a highly pressured environment and to support other colleagues in achieving similar goals;
  • Demonstrates capacity to respond flexible and positively to change through active involvement and generation of innovative, practical solutions to challenging situations;
  • Ability to establish effective working relations in a multicultural team environment;
  • Resourcefulness, initiative and maturity of judgement.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Advanced university degree in information technology, computer science, or science.
Experience:
  • At least 10 years progressive work experience working in the IT field with direct experience on voter IT systems for voter registration;
  • Ability to design and implement IT based voter registration systems;
  • Ability to effectively capacity build national institutions in relation to voter registration systems .

Language Requirements:

  • Excellent English writing and communication skills.