Heal Zimbabwe Trust, Counselling Services Unit (CSU), NGO Forum, Habakkuk in partnership with Masakheneni Trust, and others deployed long term monitors to monitor the political environment before and after the elections. CSOs were also actively involved in the promotion of peace and in denouncing violence ahead of the elections. For example, the Union for Development of the Apostolic Churches in Zimbabwe (UDACIZA) created Peace Committees which encouraged church leaders to conduct sermons of peace in supporting the Zimbabwean peace process. The Peace Committees cut across provinces so as to cover a greater part of the nation. They also established youth committees for the youth to target issues around promotion of peace. In an effort to mitigate political violence, the ZCC established what are known as “monitoring personnel”. The monitoring personnel were deployed in areas with a known history of violence and also polling stations in respective constituencies to report and quickly detect centres that needed immediate intervention. The umbrella body, Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ) came up with a discourse of ‘thinking theology’ project and established a radio dialogue slot to engage the nation at large on the best possible means to combat election violence. The radio platform paved way for engagement with the youth, religious institutions or leaders of various congregations on the discussion forum on prevention of electoral violence. These, among other efforts, contributed to creating a more peaceful environment for the 2018 elections. The ZEC further accredited domestic observer groups to observe the Election Day processes on 30 July 2018. CSOs participated in all aspects of the electoral process of the 2018 elections with the presence of domestic observers in over half of the polling stations on Election Day. The list included ZESN which deployed 7 240 observers, the CCJP and the Inter-regional Meeting of Bishops of Southern Africa (IMBISA) that deployed 700 observers, the ZCC which deployed 300 observers who observed in Harare and surrounding areas, and NANGO which deployed 364 local observers to cover the various sampled polling stations and others. 11.1 CSOs Election Situation Room In spite of the funding challenges to comprehensively deploy observers in these elections, two months before the harmonised elections, the CSOs working on elections established the Election Situation Room (ESR) project. The main objective of the ESR was to enhance coordinated and effective information sharing of electoral processes to promote free, fair, and credible electoral processes in Zimbabwe. Members of the CSOs were strategically identified from the broader Zimbabwean civil society landscape. ZESN was the convener of this project. The project enhanced monitoring of the political environment and rapid response to and advocacy around challenges during the pre-election, Election Day and post-election periods of the 2018 harmonised elections. 66 | P a g e