budget

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.

The general objective of the project was to reinforce the voice and influence of civil society in West and Central Africa to improve access to water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH). While the project addressed clearly defined needs for reinforcing capacity of WASH platforms and the platforms’ presence in consultation processes, its design did not sufficiently emphasize the needs for organizational capacity building, gender concerns in the consultation processes, and exchanges of information among participating platforms on issues of lobbying strategy. Achievements were adequate, especially in view of the vast geographical area covered by the project and the fact that the budgets devolved to each country were relatively limited. In terms of direct impact the project contributed to making attitudes within civil society organizations evolve towards a greater understanding of WASH access as a human right.

Working with women’s community-based organizations and municipal authorities the project aimed to enhance the social and economic rights of women in Niger by supporting Gender Responsive Budgeting. Integrating a gender perspective into all steps of the municipal budget process, the project focused on improving the capacity of women to advocate municipalities to shape local budgetary policies which consider their health, education and water sanitation concerns. The project’s strategy of working directly with women community based organization members and municipal officials brought activities closer to beneficiaries in the five targeted municipalities of Niger. This approach was highly relevant to women as a beneficiary group, which for most part, rarely has a voice in public affairs and limited access to political decision-making processes.

Working with women’s community-based organizations and municipal authorities the project aimed to enhance the social and economic rights of women in Niger by supporting Gender Responsive Budgeting. Integrating a gender perspective into all steps of the municipal budget process, the project focused on improving the capacity of women to advocate municipalities to shape local budgetary policies which consider their health, education and water sanitation concerns. The project’s strategy of working directly with women community based organization members and municipal officials brought activities closer to beneficiaries in the five targeted municipalities of Niger. This approach was highly relevant to women as a beneficiary group, which for most part, rarely has a voice in public affairs and limited access to political decision-making processes.

Working with women’s community-based organizations and municipal authorities the project aimed to enhance the social and economic rights of women in Niger by supporting Gender Responsive Budgeting. Integrating a gender perspective into all steps of the municipal budget process, the project focused on improving the capacity of women to advocate municipalities to shape local budgetary policies which consider their health, education and water sanitation concerns. The project’s strategy of working directly with women community based organization members and municipal officials brought activities closer to beneficiaries in the five targeted municipalities of Niger. This approach was highly relevant to women as a beneficiary group, which for most part, rarely has a voice in public affairs and limited access to political decision-making processes.

The project had the overall development goal of facilitating the recognition and replication of the Peoples Council in the country as a democratization mechanism in local governance. The immediate project objective was to establish, expand and institutionalize the Peoples Council in 21 barangays in the city and six municipalities in the Metro Naga area. In Naga City, the People’s Council proved itself as an effective mechanism for public participation, particularly for representatives of poor and other vulnerable groups. The project’s initiative to replicate the success of the Naga City People’s council was a relevant contribution to the broader aim of enhancing local democracy in the Philippines. The project had mixed success in achieving its targets and encountered some major disappointments in reaching the goal of institutionalizing the People’s Council in the 27 target local government areas. However, the People’s Councils were officially recognized in the case of four of the six municipal people’s councils, but only in five of the 21 barangay people’s councils. Despite this, grantee cannot be faulted on its effort to achieve the project goals, and, given the scope of what the project sought to achieve, a great deal was accomplished.

The project aimed to address needs of the Gabonese youth to participate in electoral processes. The project had three components: social mobilization – including motivating young people to participate and engage in politics; strengthening the leadership of youth – including integrating young people in the spheres of influence within their local area; and advocacy which aimed to stablish local forums for young leaders in democracy. The project encountered some challenges including education strikes, and the refusal of some educational leaders to let young people participate. Despite the difficulties encountered, the grantee's efforts still resulted in some remarkable results. The project was particularly successful in encouraging school and university students to speak their mind. The evaluators were also impressed by the variety of communication products, such as educational materials and publications, both in digital version in hard copy, as well as by the quality of professionally produced advertising spots and by the discussions broadcasted on television.

The project aimed to address needs of the Gabonese youth to participate in electoral processes. The project had three components: social mobilization – including motivating young people to participate and engage in politics; strengthening the leadership of youth – including integrating young people in the spheres of influence within their local area; and advocacy which aimed to stablish local forums for young leaders in democracy. The project encountered some challenges including education strikes, and the refusal of some educational leaders to let young people participate. Despite the difficulties encountered, the grantee's efforts still resulted in some remarkable results. The project was particularly successful in encouraging school and university students to speak their mind. The evaluators were also impressed by the variety of communication products, such as educational materials and publications, both in digital version in hard copy, as well as by the quality of professionally produced advertising spots and by the discussions broadcasted on television.

The project had four objectives: to increase and improve gender-sensitive media coverage of issues affecting women in marginalized communities, in traditional/mainstream media in Zimbabwe; to create tools and use non-traditional media to disseminate and exchange information; to increase the capacity of marginalized women to use social media to access human rights information and freely express themselves on political, social, economic and cultural issues; and to increase marginalized women’s participation in policy dialogues and decision-making in target communities. The project was implemented in 10 communities across Zimbabwe and was designed to benefit over 7,000 women through activities including training of citizens journalists, and professional journalists in gender-sensitive reporting; the production of phone-in radio programmes; mentoring of student journalists; and use of Internet-based platforms for sharing information. The project was based on a good analysis of the gender inequalities faced by marginalized women in relation to access to information, awareness of their rights and exercise of political participation. Nevertheless, the project’s relevance was marred by its overambitious design and a lack of prioritization among its various objectives and approaches.

The project improved the awareness of Union Parishad (UP, local government) decision makers about participatory democracy and their attitudes towards basic human rights. It also established participation mechanisms for the local population (Ward Shavas) and groups (Standing Committees) representing their interests. The visibly high degree of commitment among UP chairs to advocate for decentralization impressed the evaluators. Trainee assessments evidenced successful clarification of the roles and responsibilities of Standing Committee members. Ward Shavas not only provided grass-roots input to the annual budget and the five-year planning process, but led also to the posting of citizen charter displays in all ten Unions supported by the project. Given this success, it will be appropriate to investigate long-term options introducing enhanced cooperation in local governance to a wider circle of beneficiaries. For such purpose it would be necessary to improve the existing qualitative evidence of case studies of the project beneficiaries’ achievements, and to actively disseminate it to facilitate efficient replication for the benefit of sustainability elsewhere.