Lessons

Given the numerous challenges of the Palestinian context, it is increasingly relevant to engage Palestinian youth in order to increase their individual resilience and help them cope with the stress they face. Youth in Gaza face double exclusion compared to their peers in the West Bank as a result of settlements and internal conflict, which makes engaging them more difficult and therefore requires additional funding, effort, and monitoring to achieve meaningful change and results.

Project design should focus on the detailed definitions of Global Objective, Specific Objectives, Actions, Indicators (at outcome and output level), Baseline and Targets. As it stands, the project definition lacked a clear project design matrix; overall and specific objectives and outputs were missing; outcome indicators were missing (outcome indicators were in fact output indicators), and outputs were not defined. Lastly, no sources of information/means of verification were formulated.

The project was conceived as a comprehensive capacity development project with an approach involving participants into the development of replication strategies and the development of common actions and strategies in traditional and non-traditional communication spaces. However, during its implementation, the project has mainly been an academic endeavour, with a rather classic approach to capacity development methodologies and systems. In this project, as designed, the components of socialisation by the students as well as the engagement with public authorities should have remained a priority, and practical, on-the-job training approaches should have been privileged as originally foreseen. If these practical aspects are not considered a priority, a more standardized approach to capacity development should be followed at the project design stage.

The adoption of a coordination strategy between the project and other relevant actors (mostly from the Academic arena) would have been key in order to optimize resources and avoid duplication, while strengthening coordination. It is therefore important that UNDEF continues to require such strategies for all its projects.

The adaptation strategy to the COVID-19 pandemic was key for the project success. In this regard, a strategy aimed at adapting methods to changing, external circumstances (natural, pandemic and/or geopolitical), going beyond the risks inherent to the project’s internal design, and defining the actions and measures to be to be taken should such potential changes materialize should also continue to be considered systematically in all UNDEF projects.

 

The elderly project should be a source of learning for both UNDEF and the grantee organization LBH Apik, since both parties have not dealt exclusively with elderly before. In a short project such as this (especially with an unexpected challenge like the pandemic), the Donor and Implementing Agency should conduct more frequently periodical pause and reflection to assess direction, progress, challenges, and lessons learnt in order to be able to manage the project adaptively. Ideally this is done every quarter. Sessions for the purpose of learning need to be intentionally planned from the outset. It is unclear whether programmatic learning is being performed from the bottom to the top, and vice versa. It is useful however to cohesively provide a picture on the differences and similarities, and what worked and what did not work.

The grantee organization LBH Apik and its local chapters are well-established grassroots organizations with internal systems and procedures in place. Building good rapport with local stakeholders was one of the key strengths of LBH Apik and a good strategy to secure commitment and can be continued in future programmes.

Elderly welfare and fulfilment of their rights is a complex matter that require multi-dimensional interventions. Based on the experience of the elderly project implemented by LBH Apik, “soft” entry points like health, social gatherings, and economic opportunities have proven to be much effective as a way to gather and motivate the elderly to learn more about their rights. This can be a model for future interventions.

Project activity costs can be reduced through close coordination, mutual trust and regular consultation with key implementing partners that can lead to financial burden sharing and increased buy-in. This project, for example, reduced costs by persuading implementing partners to share some of the financial burden for certain events, when co-hosting.

It is widely accepted that local community radios continue to be the medium most established and most used and trusted (for news and information) by people in Mali and other countries in the Central Sahel region – especially in remote areas where access to print media and television is more limited. However, the use and influence of social media is already significant and is expected to grow – and should be part of any context-setting, if not the subject of direct activity, in future projects supporting the media sector.