Djerba, Tunisia - 15 April 2015 - This week, from 12 to 16 April, the UN Electoral Support Team, which brings together resources from both the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), is mounting a five-day BRIDGE workshop on gender and elections targeting 23 participants drawn from Libya’s High National Elections Commission and Libyan civil society. The workshop, which is made possible through the support of the European Union, is taking place in Djerba, Tunisia.

Full and equal participation of all citizens is vital to ensuring a strong, sustainable democracy, and is therefore of relevance to all Libyans, both men and women. The workshop aims to promote an understanding of factors that serve to disproportionately limit women’s in elections, which are important for both men and women in positions of influence to understand so that such factors can be minimized in future.

BRIDGE, which stands for Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections, is a modular professional development programme with a particular focus on electoral processes. The workshop is delivered as part of a series of BRIDGE workshops aimed at strengthening knowledge of Libyan electoral actors regarding critical electoral issues.

In addition to seven staff from Libya’s High National Elections Commission, participants include representatives from 16 Libyan civil society organizations.

The workshop is the first in a series of three such events to take place in Tunisia in coming weeks, which will target actors from around the region.

The current workshop is conducted in partnership with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).