replication

To increase representation and participation of women in social, economic and political activities in Somalia, the project focused on training and providing support to 20 CSO partners, through mentoring, exchanges, and networking. Grassroots awareness was raised through the CSOs and via the media, as well as through a series of school debates. Advocacy targeting regional and national officials was carried out through meetings and the development of regional and national strategies on women’s empowerment. A final component of the project tested the new capacity of these CSOs, by awarding 10 USD2,000 grants to CSOs which submitted the most innovative projects on women’s empowerment. The project was well designed, with a number of components that helped it both to empower women in the 20 participating CSOs and beyond. It was also timely, given discussions on a new Constitution and elections announced for 2016. The actions planned were carried out and met their targets. There were no superfluous components in the project; each was designed to add value to other parts of the project.

The project's objective was to strengthen institutional capacity of three independent CSOs working with rural women’s groups so that they could establish associations of self-help groups and promote inclusive participatory dialogue with authorities. Working from a UNDP model, the project focused on three aspects: transparency and accountability; rights awareness and advocacy; and linkages with other community-level groups. The project was exemplary in its effectiveness, both in terms of the clarity of outcomes to be achieved (and activities to achieve them) and of quantitative and qualitative standards of achievement. It raised awareness of voters’ and women’s rights, and initiated engagement between local officials and rural communities. This is also an example of a project where sustainability was included in the design. The capacity building activities included supporting partner organizations achieve a degree of financial independence, by providing technical advice on project design and management, and by helping them develop internal governance and accountability systems.

The project aimed to identify new youth fellows, train them in leadership and concepts of democracy and governance, and prepare them to lead development projects in their communities. The strategy to do this was through "placements" with local grassroots organizations. The 130 trained youth fellows were supported through the fellowship network, including meetings at local and state levels and by identifying 400 youth volunteers through community "reflect circles" that the fellows facilitated. Together, the fellows and volunteers led and established a large number of development projects within the communities, ranging from pig rearing to the building of early education centres. The model is ideally suited to both produce the expected outcomes and also lay the groundwork for potential future representation at national level. The project far exceeded its own expectations, reaching more than 100,000 people through project activities. However, planned training of journalists and the development of a website proved not to be possible in the political climate in Myanmar and were replaced by the production of a series of newsletters for the fellows and for broader dissemination.