International work

This page explains the kinds of international work we undertake and provides details of some of the international organisations we work with.

We collaborate with international organisations and electoral commissions around the world to provide guidance, expertise and best practice on a range of electoral issues.

We also use international experience to inform and improve UK electoral processes, and to ensure effective organisation and monitoring of elections at home and abroad.

Background

The subsequent legislation does not oblige us to undertake international work, but it does provide us with the powers to do so.

Section 10 of PPERA permits us to provide advice and assistance to relevant bodies at the request of such organisations and in any matter in which we have expertise. PPERA notes that ‘relevant bodies’ include international governments and parliaments, electoral commissions, inter-governmental organisations and non-governmental organisations.

Objectives

The goals of the international strategy are:

Objective 1: to use international experience to inform and improve UK electoral processes and the regulation of party and election finance
Objective 2: to facilitate effective monitoring of UK elections
Objective 3: to contribute our experience in the international field

Visitors

We are regularly asked to receive overseas delegations to the UK who are interested in finding out more about our work. Often these come from the Sponsored Visits Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), but can also come directly visiting delegations, from foreign embassies and High Commissions in London, from non-governmental organisations, or other sources. In the last year we have met with representatives from:

Australian Electoral Commission
Bangladesh Electoral Commission
Deputy Governor of Anguilla
IFES Nepal
Korean Election Commission
Lesotho Electoral Commission
Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Secretariat of the House of Councillors in Japan
Taiwan Government

Meeting us

We welcome enquiries from other electoral commissions and international organisations regarding the work we do:

registering political parties
providing guidance on party and election finance
publishing details of where parties and candidates get money from and how they spend it
setting standards for running elections and reporting on how well this is done
public information campaigns
local government boundary arrangements

For further information, contact Caroline Evans.

Conferences

We organise conferences to provide forums in which to discuss our work with other interested organisations around the world. Details of past and forthcoming events are given below.