Media Center

Press Release

OAS Contributes to Quality Management Certification ISO 9001:2008 of Peru’s National Jury of Elections

The National Jury of Elections (JNE) of Peru today received in Lima the international quality certificate ISO 9001:2008 that accredits the implementation of a System of Quality Management in four key processes and closes a process that featured the support and coordination of the Organization of American States (OAS) for more than a year.

This recognition means that Supervision, Attention to the Citizen, Civic Education and Citizen Formation, and Regulations will be added to the certification already obtained by the JNE’s Registry of Political Organizations, which will have a direct impact on services provided to the citizenry.

The Jury will be able to attend the consultations to be held on electoral matters; contribute to the development of a citizen education in diverse social spaces; and guarantee an adequate and timely administration of electoral justice. The certification will favor voters so they may exercise their right to vote in a more informed way.

The JNE is the second electoral body in the region to receive the ISO certification in its procedures, something achieved by the Electoral Court of Panama, also jointly with the OAS.

As a result of both experiences, the OAS, through its Department for Electoral Cooperation and Observation (DECO) has pushed an unprecedented project at the global level to bring to the strengthening of electoral institutions the development of an Electoral ISO Norm. In creating this international standard, the OAS sees a way of technically confronting the claims against the legitimacy of electoral processes, as well as helping the modernization of electoral bodies through the application of standardization norms to its procedures.

In this framework, the OAS highlights the effort conducted by the National Jury of Elections to deepen and improve its institutional capacity, which at the same time strengthens the work of the Organization in implementing Quality Management Systems in the electoral bodies of the Americas.

Though quality management in government organizations is something relatively new, to the OAS the level of response to the needs of citizens, transparency and efficiency in the good performance of public institutions is key, which is why it congratulates the JNE on this accomplishment.

The project was made possible thanks to the financial contribution of the Spanish International Cooperation Agency for Development and the Government of Canada, following the signing of an agreement between the Technical Electoral Cooperation section of the OAS Department for Electoral Cooperation and Observation (DECO) and the JNE.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-987/11