By Yusef Taylor, @FlexDan_YT
The Gambia’s Civil Society Organisation (CSO) Coalition on Elections reviewed and adopted the Coalition’s Terms of Reference which has established a 7 member Steering Committee (SC) to run the affairs of the Coalition on Elections.
The CSO Coalition on Elections is under the leadership of TANGO, coordinated and spearheaded by WANEP the Gambia based in Fajara. The meeting which featured prominent CSO Advocates took place on Friday 7th May 2021 at WANEP-The Gambia’s Peace Garden.
It was agreed that at least 3 members from the 7 member team must be female and at least an additional 2 members must be from youth lead organisations with gender balance of male and female from the youth lead Organisations. At least one of the members must be from the Disability Organisations. All members of the organisation will be allowed only one 3 year term after which other organisations will replace them.
The group will be spearheaded by a Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson with WANEP continuing in its role as the secretariat for the Coalition. The Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson must maintain gender balance with one being male and female. The Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson will serve for a period of three years, non-renewable.
So far it was agreed that the Youth Representatives will come from National Youth Parliament, Peace Ambassadors, Activista and Hopes of tomorrow who will have to decide and provide at least one male and female youth representative between them. This will leave a minimum of 2 more women to be selected. TANGO and FAWEGAM have been identified as organisations that will provide two female representatives to join the group. Leaving three more members to complete the 7 member SC.
To round up the membership, the Gambia Press Union (GPU) was selected to send a member to represent the media meanwhile the Coalition will reach out to The Gambia Federation for the Disabled (GFD) who will select a representative to represent the Disabled Community while the 7th member will come from the African Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies.