outcomes

This project aims to improve the provision of local democratic services to women, youth and students in disadvantaged communities in 5 regions. It will facilitate capacity development and create an enabling environment for Women Self Help Groups, youth associations and student groups to support their own "democracy action" initiatives. The project also seeks to initiate intensive campaigns on the Right to Information Act, in developing informed citizens. Additionally, the project will develop micro justice initiatives to address problems of infringement of rights; establishing para-legal clinics to facilitate the insurance of citizen rights and entitlements for development.

The project sought to improve the quality of nongovernmental organizations’ (NGO) services and programmes by strengthening their capacity to effectively implement accountability standards. Its intended outcomes were: strengthened NGO capacity to implement accountability strategies and tools; strengthened capacity of donor community to foster participatory accountability within the NGO community; and increased public demand for greater NGO accountability to beneficiaries. The project design, however, was not well grounded in the larger concept of accountability, or in how donors incorporate these principles into the efforts they fund. It also did not take into consideration feedback received from potential partners and beneficiaries during the design, and did not adequately consult with donors who were identified as a target group.

The project intended to tackle the low level of civic participation in the disadvantaged rural zones of central Tunisia and to boost the civic commitment of those populations. In addition to strengthening the capacity of local actors to transmit information about the election process, the project aimed to increase awareness of and participation of targeted groups - women, young adults and adolescents - in the mechanisms and the activities of Tunisian civil society. Taking into account the profile of the grantee’s partner organizations and the available resources, not all of the project’s objectives were realistic or achievable. The partners introduced important modifications to the expected results during project implementation and there were several delays which affected the way that activities were implemented.

The project aimed to address the problem of weak local civil society organizations [CSOs] and the general lack of collaboration between private and public development stakeholders in Yemen. Specifically, the project sought to improve the capacity of local CSOs and strengthen partnerships between local CSOs and the government at the local and national levels in order to effectively address emergencies and respond to humanitarian situations. The project was implemented in four governorates of Yemen (Sana’a, Aden, Hadramawt and Hudaydah ) and in three pilot pilot districts (Ghayl Ba Wazir in Hadramawt, Al Boreqah in Aden, and Al Mansuriyah in Hudaydah), while advocacy at national level was conducted with the authorities in Sana’a. The project was very relevant, in that it identified genuine needs at community level and in terms of civil society capacity building and took a two-pronged approach (that was appropriate to the situation in Yemen. The project could not have anticipated the near-failure of central government that Yemen has experienced since 2014. However the project strategy of working with local authorities and civil society stakeholders at community level was relevant to the reinforcement of local governance, irrespective of the national political situation. Some significant groundwork has been carried out in this respect, which may bear fruit if a functional government is re-established.

The objective of the project was to enhance trust-building and cooperation among local government, nongovernmental organizations and extractive industries in Indonesia, by strengthening the capacity and credibility of NGOs as partners in corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. The focus was on improving the ability of local NGOs to forge permanent partnerships with companies and local governments in CSR policy design and implementation. The project was relevant, given the legal and fiscal requirements governing CSR, the degree of poverty in extractive areas, the lack of enforcement of CSR policies, and the lack of attention paid to civil society engagement and NGO involvement as direct benefits of CSR policies. However, the project risks and problems in terms of corporate and local government commitment were neither adequately identified nor addressed during the design and implementation phase.

The project aimed to support six existing street papers in African cities as well as to establish a new paper in Lagos. The overall development goal was to support people selling newspapers to earn a living and at the same time fulfil a broader social need for independent information on social issues The project involved: sharing of stories among the participating papers, through a regional coordination unit in Zambia; training for vendors and journalists, through a regional training coordinator and with support from outside journalists; a feasibility study and establishment of the Lagos paper; and advocacy to the broader public through the regional news service.. The International Network of Street Papers Foundation – the umbrella group managing the coordination among papers – was in a position effectively to support the project by obtaining funding and by taking on project coordination and supervision tasks. These factors ensured the overall relevance of the project. The project’s achievements, in the face of complex logistical challenges, demonstrated that groups of committed, skilled civil society activists can achieve significant results, as the sections below will highlight. However, the project’s relevance was diminished by a number of design flaws. There was an imbalance between the objectives of the project – which concerned the development of media freedom and independent news, as well as empowerment of the poor – and the project activities, which were directed towards capacity building of the papers themselves and towards training.

Aiming to improve human rights protection of citizens in Kazakhstan, the project developed a human rights education course for introduction into the curricula of Kazakh institutions training future police officers. The project involved training staff involved in educating police recruits. Outputs aimed to ensure that graduates from this human rights training programme exercise their functions taking into account international human rights standards. However, the project's ultimate impact - the mandatory introduction of human rights training into the police academies' curriculum - remained unachieved.

The goal of the project was to increase and strengthen political participation and citizenship among women within democratically elected institutions before, during, and after the election process of 2010. The underlying idea was to make use of this election period as a timeframe allowing for public debate in order to raise awareness among influential parties, such as the media and women leaders, of their rights in order to better know and to assert these rights by creating a National Forum.

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.