Client: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), UNDP, UNOPS

Joint Electoral Management Body Secretariat (JEMBS), Afghanistan

 

Project: Afghanistan National (Wolesi Jirga)

and Provincial Elections

Billboards, banners, posters & leaflets

 

Products: Media kits, posters, leaflets, billboards, banners, stickers, publications, brochures, newsletters, training flip charts, training manuals, cartoon strips, animations, magazine and newspaper inserts, PSAs, exhibits for media centre

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Languages: Dari and Pashto

 

The Wolesi Jirga (Lower House of National Assembly) and Provincial Council elections were held in 2005. It was the second time democratic elections had been held in this vast and unstable country. 

 

In coordination with the Joint Electoral Management Body Secretariat (JEMBS) and our design team we produced and disseminated a wide variety of print, audio and visual public outreach materials to ensure informed participation. These materials were designed to provide important information and key messages about the electoral process to Afghan voters and detailed training materials for electoral officials. The focus was on providing potential voters a clear understanding of the government’s transitional process, registration, polling and counting processes and encouraging Afghan citizens to participate in the elections.

 

One of the major challenges was to communicate a complex electoral process reaching an ethnically diverse audience of 12 million with a 64% illiteracy rate. In addition, many cultural sensitivities exist such as: women and men must not be shown together or portraying one ethnic group over another. Illustrations and cartoons were best way to depict this diverse environment. The artwork and messages were hand illustrated by Afghan artists illustrating the range of Afghanistan’s ethnicity, regional and cultural differences. Leaflets were designed two-sided; in some cases women on one side, men on the other; in other cases one side would be in Dari, the other in Pashto.

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"Officials believe that the use of cartoons and info-graphics during registration helped educate the people." - BBC News

 

In a male dominated society where women’s rights are restricted we designed campaigns targeted towards women, many of these materials were directed towards the male community relaying the importance of women’s votes and encouraging them to ensure the women in their community voted. 41% of women registered to vote.

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Design team: Karen Kelleher Carneiro, Brad Becker,

Damir Midzic, Maggie Lamb, Sandi Causevic,

Míša Alexander and Saboor

Illustrations: Toby Gibson, Ghulam Seddiq and Alef Alef

Photography: Marie Frechon

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