Community activism

The project was relevant to the needs of Azerbaijan because (i) three elections were scheduled during the implementation period, (ii) voter participation has been low, particularly women’s participation, and (iii) especially in rural regions, women’s participation in social and political life is limited.

The decision to work in rural districts in Azerbaijan located reasonably close to Baku was a good one, as the needs for women’s empowerment outside the capital are greatest. Directly supporting a local NGO with no Baku base represented an innovative move

Training recipients interviewed expressed the view that they became more aware of and interested in politics as a result of trainings, and the grantee reports that several training participants became candidates. One trainee interviewed was motivated to become an election observer.

The major weakness of the project from a relevance point of view was that it bore no real relationship to needed governance reforms. The elections process in Azerbaijan is flawed. While increasing women’s participation in a flawed process is a valid goal, the project would have added more value if it had addressed basic issues in governance. While the project may have had some impact on women’s empowerment, it had none on democratization.

The grantee specialized in increasing the social participation of women in Azerbaijan. In this area, it had expertise, credibility, wide respect, and a strong network. It did not have these assets in elections and democratization. All of the planned outputs consisted of increasing the affiliation of women (and journalists) to the existing, flawed election system.

Partnerships were not strategically designed; the two partnerships formed by the principal implementing agency appear to have been largely partnerships of convenience, lacking strategic direction and substantive content. The grantee has a strong comparative advantage as a locally-based NGO outside Baku specialized in women’s empowerment, but it needs to leverage that comparative advantage by forming partnerships with groups with greater capacity in democratization.

Pairing with a more adversarial and higher-capacity NGO would have greatly leveraged project accomplishments and contributed to sustainability by better building capacity. No Memoranda of Understanding setting forth expectations and responsibilities were ever signed between the grantee and partners. The evaluators’ opinion is that these partnerships appear to have been based more on acquaintanceships and familiarity rather than strategic considerations. Neither partner organization had ever been involved in an elections project before.