Contact Us

OVERALL PROJECT OBJECTIVE

 

The overall objective of PROPEL is to strengthen local dialogue and mediation capacities in Zanzibar to engage in and mitigate potential conflicts in order to ensure that the 2015 elections take place in a peaceful manner in Zanzibar. Dialogue is a very effective tool to diffuse conflict. The basics of dialogue is simply structured interactions between and amongst stakeholders in order to gain a greater understanding of the positions, needs and interests of others. All stakeholders in an electoral process can be dialogue partners.  It can sometimes be needed to engage a third party to provide a safe forum for dialogue, if the topics discussed can give raise to naming and blaming, thus entering into a deadlock. Smooth facilitation of dialogue especially between, but also within political parties, is something that PROPEL is designed to cater for. It will, however, be up to the stakeholders to seek this possibility from PROPEL that does not consider it a given that all stakeholders would like to engage in dialogue. PROPEL can inspire and encourage to participate, but ultimately, the dialogue partners must participate based on their free will.

 

SPECIFIC PROJECT OBJECTIVES

 

The project’s specific objectives can be summarised as follows:

  1. to develop a crisis management/mediation process with political leaders
  2. to support conflict prevention mediation and dialogue activities by a wide range of key electoral stakeholders (at Zanzibar islands-level)
  3. to support confidence-building dialogue initiatives (community level) and
  4. to link existing peace-building projects to an early warning mechanism

 

PRIMARY BENEFICIARIES

 

The main beneficiaries of PROPEL include, but are not exclusively limited to: political party leaders, political party youth wings and women’s organisations, religious leaders and the Joint Committee for Peace and Tranquility in Zanzibar, the Electoral Commission of Zanzibar, civil society and media whose role could potentially be detrimental in exacerbating or tempering civil unrest. Clearly, peaceful and inclusive elections are also in the best interests of the population of Zanzibar and the wider region.

 

TARGET RESULTS

 

The PROPEL project aspires to achieve the following main results:

 

i) political leaders and decision-makers to be directly engaged in constructive dialogue on issues central to Zanzibar in the 2015 election

ii) CSOs engaged in dialogue facilitation, awareness, and conflict mitigation activities

iii) overall increased capacities in conflict prevention, dialogue, and mediation in key institutions and actors with the potential for mass mobilization

iv) increased information and communication on election-related conflict through a sensitisation outreach programme.