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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.

The proposed project aims to promote online citizen journalism and improve access to information on the freedom of expression as a cornerstone for good-governance in Morocco. This project will be supported by a national multi-stakeholder platform and will validate a legislative proposal for the defense of the digital space in Morocco. The project will strengthen Moroccan CSOs' skills and aid journalists, lawyers and social movements on gender issues pertinent to digital rights with the support of 45 awareness campaigns on the freedom of speech and the right to information.

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 aimed to contribute to the judiciary reform process in Guinea through establishing a new social contract on justice linking CSOs, magistrates and auxiliaries of justice. Strategically, the project was based on two outcome components, to support increased capacity for advocacy, monitoring and judicial oversight, and enhanced capacity for dialogue and collaboration between civil society and the judiciary on ways to improve the judicial system in order for it to become more responsive to the needs of civil society. This strategic approach appropriate for the limited scope of the project; its key points of strength were the acknowledgement that training was a first step before the setting up a platform for dialogue and the inclusion of a mini-grant scheme. The project was ambitious but realistic. However, the methodology did not include a mechanism to replicate project experiences beyond the target areas of Conakry and Kankan - the most important judicial districts in Guinea - once the project ended.

The project sought to strengthen the collective voice and action of civil society in the Mexican states of Chiapas, Hidalgo and Guerrero. The focus was on increasing the ability of local CSOs and women, indigenous groups and youth to demand equitable and quality public education and healthcare services through strengthening the ability of CSOs to train, inform, and raise awareness of these rights, and giving opportunities for them to advocate for these services as a basic human right. The use of local level CSOs was an effective approach to implement community-based activities, but the lack of an integrated programme between the states and national level limited its usefulness and potential impact. The use of a diagnostic to develop training and an agenda for action was a good technique, but required more focus on issues of voice and civic participation which were the main objectives of the project. The project strengthened advocacy efforts for more equitable health and education services in its targeted areas in Chiapas, Hidalgo and Guerrero. In particular, it increased individual knowledge, capacity and leadership among participating CSOs and community members. However, the extent of results is unknown due to the lack of outcome data. Changes are likely to be sustainable at the level of personal empowerment and relationships built with some public officials and the agenda provides CSOs with some of the key health and education issues to raise with officials in the future.