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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 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.
Evaluation Date
July 2023
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Media to Promote Inclusive Democracy in Mali

It is widely accepted that local community radios continue to be the medium most established and most used and trusted (for news and information) by people in Mali and other countries in the Central Sahel region – especially in remote areas where access to print media and television is more limited. However, the use and influence of social media is already significant and is expected to grow – and should be part of any context-setting, if not the subject of direct activity, in future projects supporting the media sector.
Project Partner
Journalists for Human Rights
Project Description
This two-year project aims at strengthening media to play a role in fostering an effective, inclusive and transparent democracy in Mali. Based on field assessments of media outlets and CSOs, the project will build the capacity of media to report on good governance and human rights issues, break the financial dependency on political sponsorship through training on business skills and greater sector accountability, and help journalists and civil society actors to work together on data projects.
Evaluation Date
January 2023
Theme
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Empowering Rural Communities in Bhutan through Mass Media

In a country like Bhutan, where culture is overwhelmingly dominant in every aspect of life and policies and seen separately from democracy, implementing a project that promotes democracy through strengthening media is not without challenges. Bhutan is ambitious to make the cultural perspective visible in all development co-operation and projects, which suggests a "mainstreaming" approach. Since culture is a complex concept and naturally varies considerably from country to country, mainstreaming is difficult. But, at the project level, it would be more appropriate to address culture using a rights perspective that focuses on freedom of expression and information. Nevertheless, it would be highly relevant to systematically include the roles of culture in media development and the promotion of democracy and democratic institutions.
Project Partner
Journalists' Association of Bhutan
Project Description
The project aims to address low levels of media knowledge and social media awareness in Bhutan’s rural population, urban centric news media, and the lack of viable, private and free media coverage on rural issues. By training journalists to report on local issues in both mainstream and social media the project will encourage local communities to engage in active reporting on rural issues. Small grants will be awarded by a jury to recognize excellence in local journalism and to encourage continued meaningful contributions to free media in Bhutan by individual rural journalists.
Evaluation Date
December 2022
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Empowering Communities Threatened with Displacement in Thailand

According to the grantee, a three-pronged approach, or a “triangle-to-move-the-mountain approach” literally translated from Thai, is necessary to bring about an enabling environment and long-lasting change:
a. Strengthening of networks and partners through capacity building, collaborative works, knowledge sharing;
b. Improvement of data, academic works, and communications related to the critical issues at hand;
c. Long-term investment in policy advocacy at district, provincial and national levels.
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: Strengthening Human Rights Protection Through Legal Education in Haiti

Grantees must be transparent with donors and target audience, sharing important information that can affect the implementation of the project, clearly explaining to the participating organizations in which framework the activities are based and which objectives they have. This requires a strong executive capacity that can manage by results. It should also involve a larger number of staff / members in project evaluation processes; and share evaluation reports with all its members to promote collective learning. Actions should be properly planned and documented using electronic records (administration and programmatic content) of implemented projects.
Project Partner
Platforme des organisations haitennes des droits humains
Project Description
The project aimed to build the capacity and skills of community actors such as farmers' organizations, youth organizations and women's organizations to defend and uphold their rights. The grantee aimed to capitalize on the experience and realities of these groups and to stimulate their effective and responsible participation in the mobilization for the respect of fundamental human rights in the country. It also wanted the project to address the low level of knowledge of community actors, vulnerable groups and local authorities on human rights as well as State authorities' obligations in respect of human rights. Legal education on the chain of protection of human rights in Haiti, the mobilization of local actors on this thematic and the establishment of legal clinics were the main elements of the project implementation strategy. The evaluation focused on assessing the results of the activities trying to identify changes that could be reasonably attributed to them. While the overall aims of the project were relevant, the project largely failed to achieve the intended results. The negative consequence in not doing enough monitoring was that activities and impacts cannot be measured. The project was neither effective nor efficient as facilitators/animators were unable to create or reinforce networks of human rights observers in the targeted communities and human rights violations failed to be systematically documented. Observation reports were based on too few and poorly documented cases and legal aid was not provided as intended. The few trainings and meetings that brought together locally elected authorities, justice system representatives and members of grassroots organizations did facilitate exchanges that are still ongoing after the projects’ closure and continue to contribute to legal education and social dialogue.
Evaluation Date
June 2018
Theme
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Promoting Freedom of Information Activism at the Local Level in Brazil

The project successfully linked access to information with the promotion of civil rights and therefore demonstrated that enforcing the law can change people’s lives. Given that the project took place in small cities, where citizens’ right to participate in public affairs is rarely acknowledged, this link was significant. One of the project’s strong points was its strategy to provide training and information about the importance of transparency in democracy and citizen involvement in public affairs.
Project Partner
ARTICLE 19: Global Campaign for Free Expression
Project Description
The aim of the project was to promote the development of a more inclusive and equal society through promoting the free flow of information to the general public so that individuals, civil servants and civil society groups acting at the local level can hold their government to account, advocate for their rights and entitlements more effectively and influence policy-making processes. Specifically the project set out to foster local activism on freedom of information and to use access to information and transparency tools to strengthen participation within municipal governments across Brazil. The project strategy was built around four specific components: a strengthened and effective network of local activists working on access to information; increased public understanding of the importance of freedom of information and how to use the concept to encourage transparency and accountability; increased public demand for governments’ responsiveness to information requests at the local level; legislative and policy reform initiatives to promote transparency at the local level. The project was highly relevant since the Access to Public Information Act had recently come into effect. This Act required each municipality to draft regulations ensuring its proper enforcement. Yet surveys had indicated a lack of interest and knowledge in many municipalities about enforcing this law.
Evaluation Date
April 2014
Country
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Your Local Representative, Strengthening Citizen Participation in Ukraine

The grantee had the capacity and expertise required to manage a sensitive sub-grant project such as this nationwide, but it needed an institutional partner to provide the programmatic vision and links for the more effective use of the information about local government and decision making that the project collected.
Project Partner
East Europe Foundation
Project Description
The project sought to enhance the capacities of Ukrainian NGOs and citizens to influence political processes by providing citizens with tools to monitor and evaluate the work of their elected officials and to advocate for needed change. Its intended outcomes were to: increase NGO activism in engaging citizens to undertake citizen monitoring and advocacy activities; increase access to information for citizens about their local representatives and electoral officials; and increase civil society demand for more accountability from their local representatives and elected officials in eight targeted regions. The main tool used by the project to achieve these outcomes was a dedicated website. However this was under-developed in the design and during implementation. The assumption that these websites alone could result in more responsive party lists or more accountable deputies was unrealistic .The impact of this project is difficult to assess as it did not collect outcome information.. The limited use of the site and its lack of links to activities in the sector reduced its potential for impact but from the anecdotal information gathered, it seems that on a limited scale, this project resulted in an increased awareness among some deputies that their activities were being watched and that information on their work could get out to the public through NGOs and websites such as these.
Evaluation Date
October 2013
Country