Mapping Election Coverage in Afghanistan

"This collaboration presents the opportunity to link citizen journalism, official elections monitoring, and traditional media coverage with a single platform that can provide a much more comprehensive picture of the election process than any of three could independently."

Internews and its partner Nai: Supporting Open Media in Afghanistan developed a collaborative, visual, interactive online mapping approach to elections observation and coverage in Afghanistan. Working with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), this mapping project was designed to: aggregate election information from a variety of sources on an independent Ushahidi map platform (open to the public), promote increased access to elections information for Afghan citizens, allow users to identify trends and patterns, and attempt to foster a transparent electoral process in Afghanistan.

Through the "lens of election observers" and the "eyes of the Afghan population" as well as media reporters, a range of elections issues such as campaign developments, as well as implementation and violations of the electoral laws and Independent Election Commission (IEC) procedures, were geo-located and categorised on this online mapping site. These reports enabled a variety of civil society organisations (CSOs) to track the elections, get a comprehensive assessment of the quality of polling, and increase confidence in credible elections. In addition, Nai leveraged its extensive mailing list to distribute hourly reports on the day of elections, as well as regular reports in the days and week to follow.

Throughout the election process and its aftermath, Internews, NDI, and The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) also reached out to political entities and advocacy groups to encourage them to utilize the data collected through the platform.

The map drew data from three distinct data streams:

• The Nai network of journalists and Nai Graduate Club members: More than 1,000 journalists collected and shared data in real time from two weeks before the elections until the publication of the final election results.
• Non-partisan domestic election observer groups: Afghanistan National Participation Organization (ANPO), the Afghanistan Youth National and Social Organization (AYNSO), and the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA) are well known and reliable organisations that were trained by NDI and accredited by the IEC to observe the electoral process.
• Afghan citizens: All Afghans were invited to submit reports to the platform via SMS, email, or social media platforms linked to the project (such as Twitter and Facebook).

Internews radio partner Salam Watandar promoted the platform through a publicity campaign "to educate the public about the platform's function and abilities, submission guidelines, and the key elements of the elections process."

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funds the Strengthening Political Entities and Civil Society (SPECS) project through the NDI.