ECI to host 4th General Assembly of A-WEB in Bengaluru on Sept 3

The Election Commission of India (ECI) will be hosting the fourth General Assembly of Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB) at Bengaluru on September 3.

Participants from over 50 countries across the globe will join the meeting, the ECI said in a statement on Sunday.

India will be taking over as the Chair of the organisation for two years from 2019. In the last A-WEB General Assembly held in Bucharest in 2017, Romania took over as the Chair and the ECI was unanimously elected as the Vice-Chair of A-WEB for the 2017-19 period.

The ECI has been an A-WEB Executive Board member since its inception in October 2013 for two consecutive terms (2013-15 and 2015-17). It will continue to remain on the Executive Board for 2021-23 in its capacity as immediate former Chair of the body.

A meeting of the Executive Board will be held on September 2 and the next day, the General Assembly will be held. where India will take over as Chair of A-WEB for 2019-2021 term. Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora would preside over the General Assembly meeting.

On September 4, an International Conference on "Initiatives and Challenges of Social Media and Information Technology in Elections" will take place. Eleven countries will make their presentations on the subject.

A-WEB is the largest association of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) worldwide with over 114 members from 106 countries. It was established on October 14, 2013, in Song-do, South Korea. The permanent secretariat of A-WEB is located is based in Seoul.

A-WEB's vision is to foster efficiency and effectiveness in conducting free, fair, transparent and participative elections worldwide.

The organisation has undertaken election information and communication technology programmes in countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Fiji, Papua Guinea and Samoa.

A-WEB also undertakes election visitor and observation programmes in various countries to study various election management practices and share knowledge with member EMBs.