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LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Gender-Responsive Local Government in Nepal

Livelihood support interventions can prove to be effective entry points in political empowerment initiatives, especially in the case of extremely marginalized and impoverished communities and should be considered as a strategic approach in project design. The present project experience clearly builds the case for linking economic and livelihood interventions to political empowerment evidenced through the successful establishment and continuation of the Musahar women led Cooperatives.

Project Name
Strengthening Gender-Responsive Local Government in Nepal
Project Partner
South Asia Partnership Nepal
Project Description

The project aims to empower Musahar women and strengthen their representation in local decision-making procedures for promoting gender-responsive local governance in two rural municipalities and two town municipalities. It will work through three main approaches:empowerment of Musahar women to claim their rights, accountability of local government authorities, and strengthening multi-stakeholder partnerships for gender-responsive local governance.

Report
evaluation_udf-19-859-nep_final.pdf
Evaluation Date
December 2024
Theme
Women's empowerment
Country
Nepal
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Gender-Responsive Local Government in Nepal

Supporting government institutions in becoming gender responsive and inclusive requires substantial efforts in institutional capacity building through sensitization, training and equipping government officials with tools and skills to carry out gender responsive planning and governance. In the present project, while the project was successful in sensitizing local government officials, focused institutional capacity building could have contributed to a more impactful and sustainable change.

Project Name
Strengthening Gender-Responsive Local Government in Nepal
Project Partner
South Asia Partnership Nepal
Project Description

The project aims to empower Musahar women and strengthen their representation in local decision-making procedures for promoting gender-responsive local governance in two rural municipalities and two town municipalities. It will work through three main approaches:empowerment of Musahar women to claim their rights, accountability of local government authorities, and strengthening multi-stakeholder partnerships for gender-responsive local governance.

Report
evaluation_udf-19-859-nep_final.pdf
Evaluation Date
December 2024
Theme
Women's empowerment
Country
Nepal
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Enhancing Women's Political Participation in Eswatini

A multi-level approach that engages stakeholders from the grassroots level to the institutional level ensures consistency and has a higher chance of success in enhancing women’s political participation. In this case, the project engaged rural communities, traditional leaders, electoral management bodies, public institutions, and the government. This comprehensive engagement enabled a concerted effort to enhance women’s political participation in the subsequent elections.

Project Name
Enhancing Women’s Political Participation in Eswatini
Project Partner
Women and Law in Southern Africa - Eswatini
Project Description

The project seeks to enhance the gender responsiveness of policies and practices in the electoral process in Eswatini by assisting stakeholders to develop gender responsive guidelines and educating citizens on the importance of women’s political participation, while empowering the female electorate with leadership skills, campaign and mobilization strategies. The project seeks to impart a long-term effect by enabling community-based paralegals to conduct gender equality sensitization talks at community level. 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.

Report
udf-18-793-swa_evaluation_report.pdf
Evaluation Date
August 2024
Theme
Electoral Processes
Women's empowerment
Country
Swaziland
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Raising the Social and Political Profile of Youth in Mozambique

The project has highlighted the receptiveness of municipal governance structures to the voices of young people. It is, therefore, opportune to invest in initiatives that actively incorporate youth perspectives into the development of public policies concerning youth affairs.
Project Name
Raising the Social and Political Profile of Youth in Mozambique
Project Partner
Associação Gender Links Moçambique
Project Description
The project supports young people's participation in local and national issues by developing youth councils and youth councilor training workshops. Young people will have their voices heard on key social and political platforms, and will be better represented at the center of local and national policies and decision-making, within and outside selected councils. Project activities incorporate actions in response to the Covid-19 crisis as it impacts youth.
Report
UDF-18-794-MOZ_Evaluation-Report_Final.pdf
Evaluation Date
April 2024
Theme
Women's empowerment
Country
Mozambique
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Democracy Through LGBT Political Participation in South Africa

Building cross-party networks of LGBTQI+ activists can ensure that key issues are retained on the agenda and more substantively engaged across the political spectrum.
Project Name
Strengthening Democracy Through LGBT Political Participation in South Africa
Project Partner
Triangle Project
Project Description
The project aims to strengthen South Africa's democracy through increasing equal participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people and promoting understanding among political parties and the Independent Electoral Commission around the importance of diverse representation. This will be achieved through the training of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex leaders in civic engagement strategy and working with parties and the Commission to adopt policies and procedures to improve their representation, participation, voter registration and turn out.
Report
udf-17-750-saf_evaluation_report_final.pdf
Evaluation Date
August 2023
Theme
Rule of law
Country
South Africa
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Fostering the Electoral Participation of Internally Displaced Persons in Georgia

Elections-related projects aimed at contributing to the democratic consolidation, cannot be seen as self-sufficient, stand-alone initiatives. In the current case, not considering the deviation of the team’s assumptions from the actual baseline and the lack of subsequent review of the implementation strategy negatively affected the project’s relevance and overall impact. When drafting and implementing such projects, it is therefore important to consider the wide range of factors related not only to the micro dimension but also those related to the macro dimension, which are relevant for the project’s integration and relevance within the larger policy context and important for the sustainability and impact to reach beyond the project’s immediate lifetime.
Project Name
Fostering the Electoral Participation of Internally Displaced Persons in Georgia
Project Partner
Consortium Legal Aid Georgia
Project Description
The project aims to increase awareness of electoral processes and to create an informed type of participation for internally displaced persons in Georgia. This will be achieved through mobilization and training to improve knowledge of electoral processes and encourage meaningful electoral involvement in the upcoming 2020 parliamentary election, and 2021 municipal elections. Capacity building activities will target civil society organizations who observe and monitor local elections.
Report
udf-17-776-geo_evaluation_report_finalr.pdf
Evaluation Date
November 2021
Theme
Community activism
Country
Georgia
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Support for Elections in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

Training-of-trainers approaches are most effective when either the institution has a culture of internal learning, or where additional financial support is provided to support the internal roll-out.
Project Name
Support for Elections in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria
Project Partner
Stakeholder Democracy Network
Project Description
Elections in Nigeria, and especially in its oil-producing Niger Delta states, have in the past been disputed and given rise to violence. One of these states, Bayelsa, is due to choose a new governor in 2020 in what is expected to be a hotly contested election. The project seeks to minimize the risk of dispute and help to ensure the election is free, fair, and credible. It will support the Independent Nigerian Electoral Commission to train staff engaged to oversee polling in at-risk areas in the procedures necessary to do so effectively. It will support the creation of a database to register party political agents in three areas, reducing the risk of unidentifiable persons engaging in illegal political activity. Activities will also include voter education across the target areas, aiming to reach 1,350 citizens in workshops and 170,000 via a public campaign, seeking to inform citizens on how to prevent votes from being stolen or manipulated.
Report
udf-17-748-nir-evaluation_report.pdf
Evaluation Date
August 2021
Theme
Electoral Processes
Country
Nigeria
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Strengthening Democratic Participation and Inclusive Local Development in Indigenous and Peasant Communities in Bolivia

Relationship building with State agencies must take place at different levels. While the grantee focused its advocacy activities on the high-level officials responsible for making policy decisions, it is equally important to work with staff of lower hierarchy given the important role they play in implementing policy. That is, enhanced trust and coordination with the lower level staff who work on identity registration processes on a daily basis helped facilitate the review process and improve the overall treatment of the community members.
Project Name
Strengthening Democratic Participation and Inclusive Local Development in Indigenous and Peasant Communities in Bolivia
Project Partner
Microjusticia Bolivia
Project Description
The project was implemented between 2014 and 2016 by the Fundación MicroJusticia Bolivia (MJB), a branch of Microjustice4All (MJ). The project objective was to legally and politically empower members and leaders of indigenous communities, women and men, in La Paz and Oruro to protect and exercise their civil and indigenous rights and participate in democratic decision-making processes. The project objectives included: an increase in the number of people holding basic legal documents; increased awareness in the target groups of the importance of having their basic legal documents (identity, legal, personality) in order; strengthened capacity of members, leaders and organizations of traditionally excluded indigenous communities to participate in democratic processes and to exercise their civil and indigenous rights; and improved access to basic legal documents through evidence-based inputs for institutional reforms through advocacy. The project was timely and relevant to participant needs and the political and cultural context in Bolivia. The potential impact could be extended beyond legal and political rights to also enhance socio-economic development once legalized communities are able to access government projects and resources. The project was cost-efficient and well managed. The project’s focus on community ownership contributed to sustainability of results, though Microjusticia’s own sustainability and ability to operate is dependent on additional external funding.
Report
UDF-13-BOL-578-ER-Final.pdf
Evaluation Date
August 2017
Theme
Rule of law
Country
Bolivia
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Civic Participation of Indigenous Youth for the Strengthening of Democracy

By the end of the project, the implementation of the public policy on youth had not been completed and depended on the adoption of a budget by the municipality. The project raised many expectations among the young people and in the communities. They wished to ensure the continuity of the initiatives. The project could have identified concrete initiatives to allow the newly established youth associations to address and push forward local issues of developed by the public policy on youth.
Project Name
Civic Participation of Indigenous Youth for the Strengthening of Democracy
Project Partner
Coordinación de ONGs y Cooperativas
Project Description
The aim of the project in Guatemala was to increase the participation of Q´eqchi youth, especially women, in individual and collective decision-making and democratic processes in the municipality of Sayaxché, department of Petén. The project strategy was structured around two activities: training young people on citizens’ rights and participatory democracy; and creating organized youth spaces to foster the participation of young people in political decision-making processes. Civic awareness-raising and training sessions for young people from 23 communities belonging to five micro-regions within the municipality of Sayaxché were held. The project then attempted to institutionalise structures by creating two youth associations. These associations were expected to draft a proposal for public policy on youth at the municipal level, which would be presented to the local government for adoption. These activities contributed to the improvement of the quality of political participation of young people and to the strengthening of the process of decentralization which promotes civic participation at the local level.
Report
UDF-GUA-11-476-ER-1.pdf
Evaluation Date
January 2016
Theme
Youth engagement
Country
Guatemala
LESSON

Lesson Learned: Civic Involvement for Transparency and Accountability in Kosovo

The emphasis on advocacy built on the experience participants had gained in monitoring, reporting and community engagement. It focused on enabling the CSOs to identify the most pressing issues, to conduct further research, and to identify practical options through which the problem might be addressed. Policy briefs were produced to a set format, and these formed the basis for an advocacy process, during which the CSOs were often accompanied by the grantee in key meetings.
Project Name
Civic Involvement for Transparency and Accountability in Kosovo
Project Partner
Kosova Democratic Institute
Project Description
Within the broader context of advancing good governance at local level, the project objective was to enhance the involvement of civil society in local governance through: local assembly monitoring; policy analysis and policy dialogues with public officials; and advocacy campaigns. The grantee sought to promote two-way communications between local officials and citizens in 14 selected municipalities and to support the strengthening of the capacities of locally-based CSOs to monitor the performance of municipal assemblies and municipal government in order to improve accountability. The emphasis of the project on transparency and accountability in municipal government while also reinforcing the position and capacities of civil society at local level was entirely appropriate. The project took place in a difficult context. Yet, despite having to deal with public passivity and indifference about politics, along with a political establishment under little direct pressure to change, it did succeed in highlighting the importance of democratic processes and in engaging citizens in the public sphere. It also made some progress in pressing local government institutions to think differently about their responsibilities.
Report
UDF-KOS-11-468-ER-1.pdf
Evaluation Date
August 2015
Theme
Rule of law
Country
Kosovo