Mr Phiri is the Executive Director of Malawi’s Public Affairs Committee (PAC) and is the elected Deputy Presiding Officer of the African Union’s fourth General Assembly of its Economic, Social, and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC).
In 1995, a year after Malawi’s first multiparty elections, Robert was invited to join South Africa’s Local Government Elections Task Group, comprising 37 electoral advisers from 13 Commonwealth countries. Deployed as provincial electoral management teams, they played a decisive role in more inclusive and democratic elections. Robert had recently joined PAC and was then integrated into the Malawi Electoral Commission delegation.
“I joined the Malawi delegation to learn how to administer elections [and] the principles of electoral process in the first multi-party local government elections.”
Since 1967, the Commonwealth has deployed Commonwealth Observer Groups (COGs) in over 200 elections in more than 40 countries. Robert joined the COG and deployed to The Gambia in 2021. He said;
“I learned from The Gambia [COG] how the Commonwealth analyses human rights and gender issues, in terms of the legal and regulatory frameworks of the electoral process to base our analysis in reporting on those international instruments and values”
Robert's role in the Commonwealth’s peace messaging and early warning activities was pivotal. His approach, and that of his fellow observers, helped pre-empt violence and maintain peace in Malawi’s 2019 and 2020 elections. Of the 2011 Uganda election, he said;
“The [Commonwealth] Secretariat was inclusive, co-operative and also ready to impart knowledge on the principles of international observations and the different observation rules [and] even helping to lobby for peace”.
“What I learned from the Technical Resource Team, I could share that experience during my international observation mission. We could share experiences and lessons. I shared my involvement in South Africa about security alerts, how you communicate with the centre, and reporting back,”.
He was also part of the 2015 Egyptian election observer mission.
“Uganda and Egypt are countries that stand out in terms of direct application of principles, ideas, strategies and security issues matters based on the month I spent in Pretoria with the Commonwealth”
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