sustainability

The project’s objective was to promote free and fair elections in Georgia. The project aimed to reduce electoral fraud and increase trust in the election results by involving citizens in monitoring and reporting on elections in cooperation with professional journalists. The citizen journalists, who included media professionals, NGO members and political party representatives, received training and some technical resources, including a memory stick and the grantee’s contact information. They were then left alone to report to the grantee about problems they have witnessed. The intervention was directly relevant to the need to strengthen the integrity of the electoral process and ensure the dissemination of objective information. Georgia lacked a tradition of citizen engagement or peaceful transfer of power through the ballot box. A financial incentive was used by the grantee, paying USD 40 for each verified report.

The aim of the project was to promote the development of a more inclusive and equal society through promoting the free flow of information to the general public so that individuals, civil servants and civil society groups acting at the local level can hold their government to account, advocate for their rights and entitlements more effectively and influence policy-making processes. Specifically the project set out to foster local activism on freedom of information and to use access to information and transparency tools to strengthen participation within municipal governments across Brazil. The project strategy was built around four specific components: a strengthened and effective network of local activists working on access to information; increased public understanding of the importance of freedom of information and how to use the concept to encourage transparency and accountability; increased public demand for governments’ responsiveness to information requests at the local level; legislative and policy reform initiatives to promote transparency at the local level. The project was highly relevant since the Access to Public Information Act had recently come into effect. This Act required each municipality to draft regulations ensuring its proper enforcement. Yet surveys had indicated a lack of interest and knowledge in many municipalities about enforcing this law.

The aim of the project was to promote the development of a more inclusive and equal society through promoting the free flow of information to the general public so that individuals, civil servants and civil society groups acting at the local level can hold their government to account, advocate for their rights and entitlements more effectively and influence policy-making processes. Specifically the project set out to foster local activism on freedom of information and to use access to information and transparency tools to strengthen participation within municipal governments across Brazil. The project strategy was built around four specific components: a strengthened and effective network of local activists working on access to information; increased public understanding of the importance of freedom of information and how to use the concept to encourage transparency and accountability; increased public demand for governments’ responsiveness to information requests at the local level; legislative and policy reform initiatives to promote transparency at the local level. The project was highly relevant since the Access to Public Information Act had recently come into effect. This Act required each municipality to draft regulations ensuring its proper enforcement. Yet surveys had indicated a lack of interest and knowledge in many municipalities about enforcing this law.

The project’s objective was to promote democratic governance by supporting and encouraging the creation of Citizen Participation Cells (CPC), as a facilitation mechanism among grassroots communities and local authorities, in order to address the low level of accountability of local authorities towards citizens. The project was implemented in 35 municipalities located in four departments of Benin. The grantee’s strategy focused on empowering citizens by fundamentally strengthening the grassroots communities. This was highly relevant in view of the profile of the beneficiary groups, vulnerable rural communities for the most part, which rarely had a voice in public affairs and had limited access to channels of influence. Supporting the practical skills of CPC members as well as municipal officials working at the local level allowed participation in local governance to take place more effectively and in a collaborative way.

The project’s objective was to promote democratic governance by supporting and encouraging the creation of Citizen Participation Cells (CPC), as a facilitation mechanism among grassroots communities and local authorities, in order to address the low level of accountability of local authorities towards citizens. The project was implemented in 35 municipalities located in four departments of Benin. The grantee’s strategy focused on empowering citizens by fundamentally strengthening the grassroots communities. This was highly relevant in view of the profile of the beneficiary groups, vulnerable rural communities for the most part, which rarely had a voice in public affairs and had limited access to channels of influence. Supporting the practical skills of CPC members as well as municipal officials working at the local level allowed participation in local governance to take place more effectively and in a collaborative way.

The project targeted the Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (TANGO) in the Gambia, and more specifically its 121 member NGOs (including the staff of some 60 NGOs) including over 2,000 members (community based organizations, religious and cultural bodies, youth organizations, trade unions and farmer associations). While the country has a plan for decentralization, the implementation of the plan has been incomplete. Civil society in the country has lacked advocacy capacity and communication channels to cooperate with regional and local level administrations so that decision making takes into account the most pressing needs of citizens.  The project attempted to increase the level of understanding between government and civil society about the positive effect that joint dialogue could have while aiming to increase the association of NGO members’ capacity to effectively engage with the government on issues of concern to civil society. The project in most cases achieved or exceeded the targeted outputs. Beneficiaries praised the usefulness of the advocacy strategy framework tool the project introduced. In addition, advocacy skills trainees confirmed that the knowledge they acquired serve their professional needs. In addition, the project’s communication forum effectively informed the public discussion about discrepancies between legal provisions and current policies.

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 focused on the creation of Youth Local Councils (YLC) in six villages in the West Bank – two in the north, two in the central area and two further south. All the young people in these villages were mobilized to register to vote in the YLC elections and underwent training in citizenship, democracy and electoral processes. Families, municipal councils, local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community members were involved in the campaign meetings or in overseeing the elections. The YLCs then received further training in the skills they would need in order to ‘govern’ effectively: negotiation, leadership, conducting meetings, fundraising, strategic planning and community action. They consulted with their youth constituents, the municipal council and community members, to devise a plan of action to contribute to their communities’ needs, and subsequently undertook a wide range of cultural and social activities, ranging from computer classes for other young people to the painting and renovation of school buildings.

The project’s principal objective was to build the capacity of women who are involved in NGOs, trade unions and political parties so that they have the confidence to participate in governance, particularly in local bodies in Algeria. This was to be achieved through leadership training in eight districts for at least 500 women; and a series of four seminars on women’s role in public life for at least 300 women. While the project was relevant, it was only partly effective, not efficient and difficult to judge its impact and sustainability.

The project sought to enhance the capacities of Ukrainian NGOs and citizens to influence political processes by providing citizens with tools to monitor and evaluate the work of their elected officials and to advocate for needed change. Its intended outcomes were to: increase NGO activism in engaging citizens to undertake citizen monitoring and advocacy activities; increase access to information for citizens about their local representatives and electoral officials; and increase civil society demand for more accountability from their local representatives and elected officials in eight targeted regions. The main tool used by the project to achieve these outcomes was a dedicated website. However this was under-developed in the design and during implementation. The assumption that these websites alone could result in more responsive party lists or more accountable deputies was unrealistic .The impact of this project is difficult to assess as it did not collect outcome information.. The limited use of the site and its lack of links to activities in the sector reduced its potential for impact but from the anecdotal information gathered, it seems that on a limited scale, this project resulted in an increased awareness among some deputies that their activities were being watched and that information on their work could get out to the public through NGOs and websites such as these.