LESSON
Lesson Learned: Human rights and democracy campaign
The project did not consider why legal and administrative documentation had not already been made available in languages other than French. Targeted lobbying would have been appropriate to highlight the necessity of translating legal and administrative documents into the different national languages and to facilitate their use by locally elected officials and rural communities.
Project Name
Project Partner
Association pour la Recherche et l'Education pour le Développement en
Project Description
Aiming to contribute to the emergence of responsible and aware citizens in four of Senegal’s regions, the project provided information on human rights and democracy in the country’s most common languages - Wolof and Pulaar. The project also aimed to ensure citizens access to legal and administrative texts through local document libraries; and trained local resource persons to be involved in the establishment of democracy and human rights monitoring centres.
The project responded to clearly existing information gaps and its relevance was enhanced by the fact that it sought to build the capacity of local officials and leaders to implement decentralization policies and other decision-making processes. It is a matter of concern, however, that the project did not include any lobbying component targeting the government itself, to address the language issue at policy level, which was the principal root cause for lack of relevant legal and administrative documentation.
Report
Evaluation Date
October 2011
Theme
Country