institutions

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.

The project was a follow-up to an earlier initiative that targeted 15 municipalities in the six Lebanese governorates. Under the UNDEF grant, the project was an extension of the initial programme, more focused on the areas of Western and Northern Bekaa to ensure a greater impact at the country level. The aim of the project was to empower youth, and tje wider community through them, to render municipal councils of Western and Northern Bekaa more transparent and accountable. The project was divided into two phases: in the first phase, five democratically elected Youth Shadow Councils (YSCs) received thematic and technical training on good governance, advocacy strategies, conducting needs assessments, access to public services, and budget analysis. In the second phase, the elected council was responsible for training another group of participants in order to disseminate the principles of transparency and accountability and motivate citizens to advocate for reforms and get involved in their community’s development process. The project mobilized and trained 200 young women and men aged 17-29 in the municipalities of Der El Ahmar, Baalbeck, Taalbaya, Saadnayel, and Sawireh. It had a relevant and well-defined strategy with concrete indicators that facilitated the monitoring of achievement levels.

The project aimed to increase the political participation of indigenous (tribal) communities and community based organizations (CBOs) in the Rangamati Hill District of Bangladesh leading to an increase in their demand for more responsive public services and policies. The project set out to do this by increasing the dialogue between formal and traditional forms of local governance. Specifically, the project’s objectives were: enhance the capacities of local government leaders, CBOs and tribal community leaders; enable better coordination between stakeholders; and, promote democratic processes to ensure pro-poor service delivery and resource allocation. Its intended outcomes were: empowered CBOs and alternative community leaders; improved participation by traditional community leaders in the formal governance system; increased women’s participation; more pro-poor gender-sensitive local services; greater trust between the different stakeholders - indigenous inhabitants, Bengalis, CBOs and local government - and regular media reporting on governance issues in the Rangamati Hill District. The project did seem to help resolve small but important issues for the communities, and helped to increase the visibility of the open budget system by promoting its use by its committees. It also seems to have increased the general level of awareness of project participants on governance issues.

The project aimed to improve understanding of transparency and accountability in the governance of the extractive sector in Kazakhstan. The project emphasised understanding of the extractive sector’s impact on poverty, environmental vulnerability, labour conditions and rights, income and access to services. Activities focused on multiple stakeholders operating in five regions of Kazakhstan, with the goal of developing more transparent, accountable, and effective institutions that would expand citizen participation and promote more sustainable development. The project targeted areas where extractive industries are important economic actors and where civil society needs increased capacity or support to more effectively engage in governance. Project activities tackled the gap in access to usable outside information through research, analysis, and outreach. Collaborative learning tactics supported increased local engagement.

At the time the project began, the process of ratifying the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance, adopted by the African Union in January 2007, was moribund and there was no international project activity to invigorate it. The objective of the project was to strengthen civil society actors to build a constituency for the signing and ratification of the Charter. At the time the project was proposed, 15 ratifications were needed to bring the Charter into force, two countries (Ethiopia and Mauritania) had ratified the Charter and twenty-five had signed it, thus indicating their intention to ratify. Assessing the impact of the project was not easy. The intended direct beneficiaries were members of the African democracy community, whose network and ability to advocate for the Charter were strengthened. It is not possible, based on the timetable of ratifications and project activities, to convincingly demonstrate that the project greatly accelerated the coming into force of the Charter. Only three countries in which activities were implemented actually ratified the Charter. The project objective was not ratification itself but rather strengthening the advocacy community and facilitating ratification yet achieving ratification in target countries was an implicit objective of the project Ultimately, the sustainability of the project activity will also be a function of political will. The project was born of policy elites, implemented by policy elites, delivered results of direct relevance only to policy elites, yet promises substantial benefits to all the people of Africa, who will benefit from democracy.

At the time the project began, the process of ratifying the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance, adopted by the African Union in January 2007, was moribund and there was no international project activity to invigorate it. The objective of the project was to strengthen civil society actors to build a constituency for the signing and ratification of the Charter. At the time the project was proposed, 15 ratifications were needed to bring the Charter into force, two countries (Ethiopia and Mauritania) had ratified the Charter and twenty-five had signed it, thus indicating their intention to ratify. Assessing the impact of the project was not easy. The intended direct beneficiaries were members of the African democracy community, whose network and ability to advocate for the Charter were strengthened. It is not possible, based on the timetable of ratifications and project activities, to convincingly demonstrate that the project greatly accelerated the coming into force of the Charter. Only three countries in which activities were implemented actually ratified the Charter. The project objective was not ratification itself but rather strengthening the advocacy community and facilitating ratification yet achieving ratification in target countries was an implicit objective of the project Ultimately, the sustainability of the project activity will also be a function of political will. The project was born of policy elites, implemented by policy elites, delivered results of direct relevance only to policy elites, yet promises substantial benefits to all the people of Africa, who will benefit from democracy.

The project aimed to mobilize youth to participate in the presidential election, by reinforcing citizens’ and voters’ knowledge. The beneficiaries were young leaders of women’s and men’s associations from across Burkina Faso, aged 18 – 25, who were involved in and committed to civil society specific activities for the youth. Activities focused on education, training and sensitization and, subsequently, on the development of a group of young leaders that can relay information and training knowledge to members of youth organisations and to the youth of their villages. The project was firmly rooted in the socio-political and cultural context of Burkina Faso. The lack of participation of young citizens in successive elections is intrinsically linked with the lack of education, in particular citizens’ and voters’ education. In the context of a still male-dominated country, the identification of beneficiaries comprising both young men and women was also appropriate to address the political participation of women. The project was also coherent in that it covered the pre-electoral, electoral and post electoral periods.

Empowering people through citizens’ journalism in Albania sought to strengthen the outreach of CSOs representing socially vulnerable groups to the community through citizen journalism by 1) equipping CSOs with public communication skills, 2) establishing a community radio station and a web portal at Tirana University, and 3) training students to report on socially relevant topics. The project was unable to establish the on-air radio but continued some training components at the University of Tirana. Activities were also extended to the University of Elbasan which had an existing campus radio station and a dean interested in community radio and citizen journalism. The project created an internet portal called “YouRadio” that it based in the IRIOM project office where it could record and upload its programming. It also branched out to broadcast each programme on a national FM radio station run by Ora, through paid airtime at a regular time each week. Towards the end of the project, it also found the private Marlin Barleti University in Tirana interested in establishing a campus radio station and provided the project equipment to its communications department.

The project’s objective was to promote a new socio-political culture in Honduras that recognizes equal participation of women in democratic governance at the local, regional and national levels. The project prioritized women in rural living in extreme poverty. The target women had very few educational opportunities and had rarely participated in politics and in decision-making. The goal of the project was: to raise awareness among citizens on the importance of full and equal women's participation in decision-making processes and equal access to justice; to strengthen the capacity of Civil Society Organisations to influence policy processes; and to institutionalize a Women’s Network at the local level. The project explicitly aimed to integrate the gender approach across all three outcomes.