Interaction with government

The following were the factors for a well-designed and effectively implemented youth engagement project:

• The project design with a theory of change that was shared and assimilated by the implementation team and the implementing partners.


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  The strategy used to enter new communities, which was pragmatic, culturally sensitive, and politically neutral.


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  The choice of implementing partners (they were from within the communities, credible, and well-known at the local level).


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  The partnership strategy, which was based on empowering implementing partners and building their capacity.


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  The adequate approach for positive youth engagement (recognition, accountability, and exploring their potential).


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  The quality of the training programme and the diversity of learning formats.


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  Well thought-out communication.

This project has demonstrated that even in the complex and difficult context of Palestine, setting realistic objectives in terms of the number of beneficiaries and communities of intervention, and adopting a pragmatic approach that includes relevant and useful activities such as training and community services, can engage different target groups, regardless of their political affiliations and sensitivities, and generate impact at both the individual and community levels.

The case of the grantee Zimam demonstrated that even though the organisation did not have a significant track record, the quality of the project proposal submitted by the grantee’s finance team could demonstrate their capability to manage funds. Indeed, UNDEF showed audacity and open-mindedness in agreeing to fund this young organisation.

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.

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.

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 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.

 

Given the high relevance and importance of the “truth-o-meter”, the design should have paid more attention (and allocate the necessary resources) to the promotion and communication of the tool and the results. There could have been public conferences and/or round tables with all concerned MPs, CSOs, communities, and media to discuss findings and generate public debates. Therefore, promoting innovative tools to a wide range of stakeholders is as important as their development, otherwise the impact of such tools remains limited and untapped.

One of the main problems of this project was that its design robustness could have been reinforced by a more detailed and comprehensive needs assessment in smaller vs. bigger municipalities in order to avoid obsolescence in some big municipalities. Consequently, inappropriate and generalised needs assessments that lead to a “one size fits all” approach can negatively affect the impact’s likelihood.