Commissioned by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), Poet Farmer realized the platform over the last months of 2018 and the beginning of 2019. International IDEA’s Constitution-Building Programme helps constitution-makers by providing knowledge and direct assistance in the area of constitutional transitions. In that capacity, International IDEA was asked by the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) to provide assistance to the process of developing a new constitution for The Gambia, following a constitutional crisis in 2016. An important part of the process of developing a new Constitution is the public consultation phase. Citizens are asked to provide input on topics such as presidential term limit, citizenship, fundamental rights and freedoms and much more. For this, Poet Farmer developed a tailored platform that allows the CRC to launch the public survey, store all data, both qualitative and quantitative at one centralized location, and also provides analysis capabilities.
From March 4-6 Poet Farmer and International IDEA led a number of training sessions for a selection of 30 of the CRC’s staff in Banjul, The Gambia. The CRC used this occasion to publicly launch the platform during an opening ceremony, led by the CRC’s Chairman, Cherno S. Jallow, under the eye of the the national press.
Poet Farmer and International IDEA are committed to the objective of further developing the platform, adding more modules and functionalities and offering it as a tool to support constitution building in more countries around the world.
Read the full Public Participation Platform Case here