Skip to main content

budget

LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Democracy Through LGBT Political Participation in South Africa

Efficient communication between project and finance management staff, and between grantees and implementing partners, is key to ensuring the delivery of projects in challenging conditions, such as during a global pandemic or when significant staff changes take place, especially when adaptive programming is required.
Project Partner
Triangle Project
Project Description
The project aims to strengthen South Africa's democracy through increasing equal participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people and promoting understanding among political parties and the Independent Electoral Commission around the importance of diverse representation. This will be achieved through the training of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex leaders in civic engagement strategy and working with parties and the Commission to adopt policies and procedures to improve their representation, participation, voter registration and turn out.
Evaluation Date
August 2023
Theme
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Democracy Through LGBT Political Participation in South Africa

Access to online training and engagement activities are limited by financial and logistical obstacles, a challenge sharply accentuated for marginalized groups in rural communities. Such activities should remain in-person where possible, and in scenarios where this is not an option, resources should be set aside to encourage grassroots participation.
Project Partner
Triangle Project
Project Description
The project aims to strengthen South Africa's democracy through increasing equal participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people and promoting understanding among political parties and the Independent Electoral Commission around the importance of diverse representation. This will be achieved through the training of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex leaders in civic engagement strategy and working with parties and the Commission to adopt policies and procedures to improve their representation, participation, voter registration and turn out.
Evaluation Date
August 2023
Theme
Country
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 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.
Evaluation Date
January 2023
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Tracking Campaign Promises in Albania

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.

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.
Evaluation Date
January 2023
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Empowering Communities Threatened with Displacement in Thailand

Mobilizing funding for local and or provincial cooperation and partnership on policy issues can be highly impactful, as it enables structural problem-solving on policy making and legal challenges. It is, however important, that grantees continue to identify the funding opportunities needed to ensure that an effective team remains in place long term that can coordinate policy efforts, lobby the right circles, and communicate across relevant stakeholders.
Project Partner
Chumchonthai Foundation
Project Description
Economic growth has benefited many citizens but has in some cases resulted in being a threat to cultural existence, livelihoods, and land/citizenship rights of communities. This project aims to promote the social, political and economic inclusion of marginalized communities in the Andaman region of Thailand, through capacity development, advocacy and community campaigning to eliminate discriminatory laws, policies, and practices. It seeks to help members of marginalized communities to gain legal identities and acquire the political and legal know-how, and organizational skills needed to assert their rights and in participating in decision-making processes. Moreover, it will support media and public-advocacy campaigns designed to increase local authorities’ knowledge of and compliance with laws and policies, recognizing the rights of marginalized people and communities.
Evaluation Date
December 2020
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Empowering Communities Threatened with Displacement in Thailand

Community leaders, organizations and networks are in need of additional resources between project cycles to sustain program outputs and outcomes. UNDEF grantees need to plan ahead, identifying and considering in their strategic planning ways to support the key nodes in regional networks through resources, capacity building, and network expansion.
Project Partner
Chumchonthai Foundation
Project Description
Economic growth has benefited many citizens but has in some cases resulted in being a threat to cultural existence, livelihoods, and land/citizenship rights of communities. This project aims to promote the social, political and economic inclusion of marginalized communities in the Andaman region of Thailand, through capacity development, advocacy and community campaigning to eliminate discriminatory laws, policies, and practices. It seeks to help members of marginalized communities to gain legal identities and acquire the political and legal know-how, and organizational skills needed to assert their rights and in participating in decision-making processes. Moreover, it will support media and public-advocacy campaigns designed to increase local authorities’ knowledge of and compliance with laws and policies, recognizing the rights of marginalized people and communities.
Evaluation Date
December 2020
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Helping Teenagers to Transform their Communities in Ukraine

Explore market costs for professional services and direct expenses for responsible yet effective and fair budgeting for project activities and personnel.
Project Description
The project aims to foster civic participation of young people in Ukraine by training them to become responsible and pro-active citizens. The central activity of the project is a non-formal civic education training program in four stages that will train teenagers to become "Junior Agents of Change" in four pilot cities. Trained Junior Agents of Change will implement development projects aiming for the transformation of their social environment and the development of their communities.
Evaluation Date
September 2020
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Creative Communication of the Nigerian Budget

Involving the media in monitoring public works worked well. Using the media helped empower communities with simplified budget information which they used to demand accountability from their parliamentarians. The media was viewed as a key contributor of information in real time and an avenue through which budget information could be disseminated widely to a large audience.
Project Partner
BudgIT Information Technology Network
Project Description
The goal of the project was to empower citizens with information about the budget process and public expenditure so as to increase the transparency and accountability of the Nigerian government. The project addressed a lack of easily understandable information on the national budget in Nigeria specifically the problem of public works projects that were promised but never completed. The original project strategy was to use social media to engage local community-based organizations (CBOs) to monitor the completion of mini public works. However, due to limited access to technology and low commitment by the local CBOs, the grantee instead engaged Project Tracking Officers (PTOs) who were equipped with mobile phones and technical skills to undertake project monitoring activities in each targeted community and who were accountable directly to the grantee.  Instead of working with the CBOs, the grantee decided to engage with community leaders as “champions” to involve community members in community project monitoring. However, the broadcast television component of the project - Tracka. - had an impact. This media platform provided a tool for giving feedback to citizens and was very effective in collecting, transferring and sharing the information on the status of the public works
Evaluation Date
July 2018
Theme
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Developing alternative models of natural resource governance based on indigenous community participation in Aceh

The reasons for selecting the five Mukims from among the 755 that exist in Banda Aceh, were not clear. The locations of the five chosen led to high expenditure on travel with little left for actual on site activities and microprojects. Given the grantee had longstanding working experience with Mukims, it was surprising that the grantee did not select those Mukims with which it had already collaborated in the past.
Project Partner
Perkumpulan Prodeelat
Project Description
The project’s objective was to strengthen the capacities of selected local Mukim communities in the Aceh province of Indonesia. A Mukim is a subdivision of a subdistrict and comprise of a number of villages. The aim of the project was to develop, advocate for and implement an alternative model of natural resource governance that promotes the participation and protects the rights of local communities, fosters environmental sustainability, and advances the interests of vulnerable and marginalized populations. The grantee’s approach was inspired by alternative governance models previously implemented by other local Mukim communities. At the time of project implementation, the legal framework which recognizes the Mukims’s authority and asserts its rights to manage its natural resources under Aceh's Special Autonomy status was not yet enforced. As Mukims represent indigenous communities in Aceh, the intended strategy was suited to the need of enhancing the credibility of Mukims. The existing Mukim associations had not previouslyt been in district policy making since they lacked visions, skills, orientations and strategies to build equal relations with public and governmental authorities.
Evaluation Date
July 2016
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Youth, Minority and Women’s Organizations in Pakistan

Project management, reporting, monitoring and evaluation systems were inadequate for a development project that required tracking results, monitoring implementation and reporting on performance so as to make sure that the project was within budget and able to make payments promptly.
Project Partner
Chanan Development Association
Project Description
The project aimed to improve the understanding and capacity of 150 civil society organizations (CSOs) to mobilize youth, women and minority groups so that they could participate in democratic processes at the grassroots level in 25 districts. Its intended outcomes were: improved understanding among civil society on democracy and advocacy skills for good governance; and increased participation of youth, women and minorities and their organizations in democratic processes. The design was ambitious in geographic scope and in the number of CSO participants, especially for the level of funding. This limited the number of activities that each CSO could undertake because it spread the funding out between so many different organizations and locations. This resulted in a number of CSOs losing interest in the project. The project also did not tailor its activities to the different needs and context of the different districts and target groups. All of the above affected the project’s relevance.
Evaluation Date
June 2016
Country