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awareness

LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Gender-Responsive Local Government in Nepal

Supporting government institutions in becoming gender responsive and inclusive requires substantial efforts in institutional capacity building through sensitization, training and equipping government officials with tools and skills to carry out gender responsive planning and governance. In the present project, while the project was successful in sensitizing local government officials, focused institutional capacity building could have contributed to a more impactful and sustainable change.

Project Name
Strengthening Gender-Responsive Local Government in Nepal
Project Partner
South Asia Partnership Nepal
Project Description

The project aims to empower Musahar women and strengthen their representation in local decision-making procedures for promoting gender-responsive local governance in two rural municipalities and two town municipalities. It will work through three main approaches:empowerment of Musahar women to claim their rights, accountability of local government authorities, and strengthening multi-stakeholder partnerships for gender-responsive local governance.

Report
evaluation_udf-19-859-nep_final.pdf
Evaluation Date
December 2024
Theme
Women's empowerment
Country
Nepal
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Enhancing Women's Political Participation in Eswatini

Community sensitization via WhatsApp proved less effective than face-to-face meetings, as it excluded individuals without smartphones and those with lower levels of literacy. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the project adapted community sensitization meetings to a remote format. The grantee produced brief videos on gender equality and the importance of women’s participation in decision-making processes, disseminating these to project beneficiaries. While this method ensured the continuation of project activities during the lockdown, it is not recommended as a model for replication, except in similar situations where in-person engagement is unfeasible, as it failed to effectively reach all community members.

Project Name
Enhancing Women’s Political Participation in Eswatini
Project Partner
Women and Law in Southern Africa - Eswatini
Project Description

The project seeks to enhance the gender responsiveness of policies and practices in the electoral process in Eswatini by assisting stakeholders to develop gender responsive guidelines and educating citizens on the importance of women’s political participation, while empowering the female electorate with leadership skills, campaign and mobilization strategies. The project seeks to impart a long-term effect by enabling community-based paralegals to conduct gender equality sensitization talks at community level. Project activities will incorporate actions in response to the Covid-19 crisis, as it impacts women, including gender-based violence as well as social and economic pressures.

Report
udf-18-793-swa_evaluation_report.pdf
Evaluation Date
August 2024
Theme
Electoral Processes
Women's empowerment
Country
Swaziland
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Grassroots Women’s Groups to Promote and Protect Civic Space in Uganda

Communication strategies should reflect the local context and most importantly be tailored towards the target audience. It is therefore important to identify the communication tools with the greatest local resonance and translate all material into local languages.
Project Name
Strengthening Grassroots Women’s Groups to Promote and Protect Civic Space in Uganda
Project Partner
All in One Womens Association
Project Description
The project goal is to empower 6,000 women by raising awareness of their gender specific rights, promoting women’s political participation, and addressing all forms of injustices that affect women’s wellbeing; strengthen the capacity of 100 unregistered women’s groups to become registered under the NGOs Act 2016; and support 100 registered women’s groups in advocating, promoting and protecting civic space in Uganda. Project activities will incorporate actions in response to the Covid-19 crisis, as it impacts women, including gender-based violence as well as social and economic pressures.
Report
Evaluation-Report-UDF-19-845-UGA_final.pdf
Evaluation Date
July 2023
Theme
Women's empowerment
Country
Uganda
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Tracking Campaign Promises in Albania

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.

Project Name
Tracking Campaign Promises in Albania
Project Partner
Regional Development Agency Korce
Project Description
The project will help Albanian people to track promises made by politicians by providing Albanian citizens, CSOs and Media with tools to fact-check the implementation of their promises on-the-ground. Through a “truth-o-meter” web/app platform and through data checking and reporting, the project will hold 201 public officials/politicians in Albania accountable for their promises with the final aim to strengthen democracy and rule of law in Albania. Through simplified versions of municipal budgets made accessible as “citizens’ budgets”, citizens will be able to evaluate and take decisions affecting the future of those politicians that are in charge of taking decisions at local or national level.
Report
udf-17-774-alb_evaluation_report_final.pdf
Evaluation Date
January 2023
Theme
Interaction with government
Country
Albania
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Improving Maya Women's Access to Justice in Rural Guatemala

Risk assessments can include a do no harm analysis: The implementing agency had a risk assessment which identified potential risks to not achieving project targets. A risk assessment could also be expanded to identify potential risks to participants for their participation in the project. These risks can be identified initially and then continuously monitored throughout project implementation through feedback mechanisms and special studies.
Project Name
Improving Maya Women's Access to Justice in Rural Guatemala
Project Partner
Women's Justice Initiative
Project Description
This project seeks to improve access to justice for some 2,900 indigenous women living in rural areas of Tecpan, Guatemala through free legal support, accompaniment of survivors, and strengthening local governance and municipal response to violence against women and girls. In addition, the project aims to increase the capacities of 175 key public actors including community leaders, service providers, and police at the local, municipal, and departmental level to provide quality services to indigenous survivors and promote human rights.
Report
UDF-17-784-GUA_Final.pdf
Evaluation Date
March 2022
Theme
Women's empowerment
Rule of law
Country
Guatemala
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Using Access to Information to Foster Open Expenditure and Budget Transparency in Liberia


Community-based radio is a key tool for raising community level awareness and promoting citizen engagement in debates around issues of corruption due to high levels of local listenership. Organizations should take care to conduct community radio programs in local languages in order to ensure maximum engagement with the local community.


Project Name
Using Access to Information to Foster Open Expenditure and Budget Transparency in Liberia
Project Partner
Liberia Media Center
Project Description
This project seeks to enhance the fight against corruption in Liberia, by fostering accountability and fiscal transparency in the public sector. It will also foster increased public advocacy in favour of anti-corruption actions and expenditure transparency. Public understanding and input in transparency and anti-corruption efforts will be buttressed by increased media coverage of these issues. Trained journalists in transparency and anti-corruption reporting, will investigate on development projects, and a team of anticorruption champions based in community radio stations, will be activated to advocate for redress, monitor and increased public awareness in the fight against corruption.
Report
Liberia-UDF-14-591-LIR-Evaluation-Report.pdf
Evaluation Date
December 2018
Theme
Rule of law
Country
Liberia
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Enhancing Women's Land Ownership Rights in Eastern Sierra Leone


Providing platforms through which women can educate other women is key for project relevance and impact. Women in Sierra Leone were not scared of speaking out to challenge prevailing cultural norms in Eastern Sierra Leone, they were merely unaware of their rights to land access in the first place. Providing women who have successfully secured land a platform from which to share their experience can build awareness and also inspire others as to what is possible for them to accomplish.


Project Name
Enhancing Women's Land Ownership Rights in Eastern Sierra Leone
Project Partner
Humanist Watch Salone
Project Description
This community-driven project is aimed at supporting an informed public debate and advocacy on women land ownership rights in the Districts of Kailahun, Kenema and Kono in Eastern Sierra Leone. The project will focus on research, public awareness-raising, building knowledge of communities on human rights and the Devolution of Estates legal framework, thus creating a forum for communities to critically analyze the need to enhance gender fairness and social justice, in the existing land tenure system.
Report
Sierra-Leone-UDF-14-595-SIL-Evaluation-Report.pdf
Evaluation Date
July 2018
Theme
Women's empowerment
Country
Sierra Leone
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Emerging Leaders of the Arab Region

Awareness raising activities should be strategic as well as tactical, for increased long-term effect. Activities should maximize the number of people reached, and the message should be focused and applied locally. Also include accurate indicators and means of verification in order to assess if there were any changes or impact, positive or negative, foreseen and unforeseen, on democratization.
Project Name
Emerging Leaders of the Arab Region
Project Partner
World Youth Alliance – Middle East (WYA-ME)
Project Description
The project’s overall development goal was to “increase the civic and democratic participation of young people in the Arab region”. The specific objective was to “empower young leaders in the Arab region to play a bigger role in civic and democratic life”. The project sought to empower young leaders in five countries in the Arab region - Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. The project approach was based on the observation that while youth played a key role in the Arab uprisings; they continued to find themselves with limited empowerment or support to take control of their lives and futures. While the intervention rationale is broadly accurate, the project document did not include substantive contextual background for each targeted country and the project design lacked context analysis for each country. There also did not seem to be any involvement from project stakeholders and beneficiaries in the formulation and design of the project. Given the lack of contextual understanding, the project’s intervention rationale and the process for implementation also lacked essential elements to make the project relevant to the needs of the beneficiaries at the local and national levels.  
Report
ER-UDF-RAS-13-550-FINAL.pdf
Evaluation Date
November 2017
Theme
Youth engagement
Country
United Arab Emirates
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Building Democratic Spaces in Egypt

The “Public Awareness” component of the project was merely an add-on to other activities. There was no plan concerning the intended audience for activities or events. No thought was given to how the “booklets” and other documents produced were to be distributed, and no consideration was given to providing guidance on how the documents were to be employed.
Project Name
Building Democratic Spaces in Egypt
Project Partner
The Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement
Project Description
The project aimed to bring together a diverse group of civil society organizations in Egypt and to work towards building a consensus among them on the principles and contents of a “democratic agenda”. It also sought to strengthen the knowledge base of those civil society groups committed to building a democratic society and state, while also enhancing public awareness of the need for, and character of, democracy. Instead of identifying a number of critical beneficiary and/or stakeholder groups and working with them throughout, the grantee worked with groups (Parliamentarians; Political Parties; Political and Social Movements; Trade Unions and Professional Syndicates; and, Youth Organizations, other civil society groups and the media) separately through one-off activities. The project then failed to adopt an approach to enable it to work systematically to bring these same groups together around a common agenda.
Report
UDF-EGY-07-162-ER-1.pdf
Evaluation Date
March 2011
Theme
Community activism
Country
Egypt
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Training citizens on law and on institutional dialogue in the Democratic Republic of Congo

The project’s aim to increase demand for human rights protection in the Democratic Republic of Congo, by raising awareness, was sound. However the impact of this set of activities was relatively uncertain. A more deliberate strategy focusing on attitudinal change, drawing on social research and lessons from other countries, might have led to a more measurable impact.
Project Name
Training citizens on law and on institutional dialogue in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Project Partner
RCN Justice & Démocratie
Project Description
The project aimed to enhance the legitimacy of the judicial system in order to reinforce democratic processes in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Specifically, the project was designed to improve the legal knowledge and sense of responsibility on the part of civil society actors by raising awareness of human rights among citizens and by improving trust between citizens and judicial institutions, as well as better liaison between judicial actors and civil society. The beneficiaries included the population of two municipalities in suburban Kinshasa, as well as families of military and police personnel housed in camps in the area; police officers, prosecutors and judges; and a group of trained NGO resource persons. The project was based on a sound strategy, which identified explicitly the institutional weaknesses that were to be addressed, and proposed realistic steps to address them. The training sessions for NGO resource persons and the seminars bringing together civil society, police and members of the judiciary were implemented to a particularly high standard, as they were both innovative in their field, and carried out with appropriate levels of skills and monitoring.
Report
UDF-DRC-07-141-ER-1.pdf
Evaluation Date
January 2011
Theme
Community activism
Country
Democratic Republic of the Congo