Since 2005, Iraq has gone through several electoral experiments, where Shams Network has had an active role in monitoring the elections as one of the most prominent Iraqi civil society organizations supporting the transparency and integrity of the elections through the monitoring programs and reports it issues. In addition to its recommendations and opinions on the electoral process procedures, Shams network prepared a work program to monitor the full cycle of the Iraqi parliamentary elections for the year 2021, which was implemented by the self-efforts of the network and its member organizations.

The project implemented activities that built the capacity of citizens to monitor elections through conducting training workshops for the different groups of observers based on their roles.

Shams Network monitored each stage of the elections. There was a focus on the status of gender, minorities and people with disabilities in each electoral stage.

These stages included:

1. The Legal Framework
2. The Voter Registration
3. The Candidate Registration
4. The Electoral Campaigns
5. The Election Day: on the elections day, STOs were deployed  in  3,000 polling stations to  observe the opening, voting and closing & counting processes; they submitted their report to the operation room after the completion of each form and provided data  entry  people  with the content  of the forms they filled. After the end of the counting process, they provide the physical forms they filled along with their notes to  their  district supervisors  who provided them to the operation room within 24 hours of the closing of ballot boxes.
6. The Result Announcement; the results announcement process was monitored in regard to the context and regulations which the results were announced in, meaning it was done according to regulations or if there have been violations.
7. The Appeals Process; each electoral stage was followed by appealing process, the appeals process on the results started after announcing the results. All aspects of the appeals process were moni­ tored, with focus on the process itself and the seriousness of handling appeals by IHEC and by courts, in addition to the nature and timeline of replies and its compatibility with the law.
8. Shams Network monitored a number of important issues  such as  the  integration  of technology and machines in the electoral process, the usage of the biometric voter cards, the IDP voting, awareness and civic education, the domestic and international observation, and the electoral vio­ lence and security.

A press conference was organized to officially launch the observation process conducted by the Shams Network for the 2021 parliamentary elections in Iraq. The media, IHEC, CSOs and international community were invited to the press conference.

A report was issued by the network on the candidate registration. At the end of the candidate registration period, the network issued a report covering all the period of registration. A comprehensive report was issued at the end of the period of appeals on candidate registration. The report showed all the findings of the observation process during the candidate registration process.

A short report was issued to present the findings of the monitoring of the appeals on the re­ sults. After this, a final report was produced at the end of the project which included recom­ mendations for further elections. The report included objective assessment data for use in fur­ ther advocacy campaigns.