BACKGROUND
Organizational Context

The UN Electoral Support Project (UNESP) is the international community’s programming vehicle to support elections in Afghanistan, including the presidential, parliamentary and district council elections. The project has two overall objectives – 1) to build the capacity of the Afghan electoral institutions—the Independent Elections Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission—to implement elections in line with the national electoral legal framework and Afghanistan’s international commitments; 2) to allow a programming mechanism for the international community to partially finance the elections as per the request of the Government of Afghanistan. The project follows previous UN projects in support of the Afghan electoral process, most notably the Enhancing Legal and Electoral Capacity for Tomorrow (ELECT) projects, from 2006-2011 (ELECT I) and 2012-2015 (ELECT II), and the UNDP Project Initiation Plan (July 2015 – October 2017). In line the UN Security Council Resolution 2489 (SCR2489), UNESP places the UN’s electoral support to Afghanistan directly under the political and supervisory oversight of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), and reflects the growing sustainability of the Afghan electoral process, as evidenced by the Government of Afghanistan’s financial commitment to both electoral institutions, and the provision of significant in-kind support to the implementation of elections. Project implementation support will be provided by the UNDP Country Office, reporting, on fiduciary and operational matters, to the UNAMA Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Political through the UNDP Resident Representative.