training

The project’s principal objectives were to enhance civic participation among Himalayan tribes and empower marginalized groups (women, people with disabilities and nomads); and to engage with governance issues and democratic dialogue. To this end, the project aimed to build a supportive environment for enhanced democratic participation through supporting state and non-state actors. The project consisted of 10 core components creating a continuum of involvement from awareness of rights to access to those rights, supported by the training and mobilization of relevant support actors and those who could make the rights a reality. The project design was logical and very much tuned to the needs of the beneficiaries and other stakeholders in this challenging region. There were no delays in project delivery, since it had been designed with the seasonal obstacles relevant to the target region in mind.

The grantee hoped to empower Civil Society Organizations and community leaders in Lao PDR and, to give them the skills and knowledge to contribute meaningfully to the country’s development. The project involved training various levels of staff in Lao non-profit associations to ensure that they would be able to share the technical knowledge and practical skills needed to transform their organizations into professionally run civil society organizations. The long term goal of these interventions was to build the capacity of the non-profit associations so that were managed in a more business-oriented manner. The participants in the project were satisfied by the organization of project events. Many of them had never been involved in training that combined lectures with practical, hands-on activities.

The grantee hoped to empower Civil Society Organizations and community leaders in Lao PDR and, to give them the skills and knowledge to contribute meaningfully to the country’s development. The project involved training various levels of staff in Lao non-profit associations to ensure that they would be able to share the technical knowledge and practical skills needed to transform their organizations into professionally run civil society organizations. The long term goal of these interventions was to build the capacity of the non-profit associations so that were managed in a more business-oriented manner. The participants in the project were satisfied by the organization of project events. Many of them had never been involved in training that combined lectures with practical, hands-on activities.

The project aimed to mobilize youth to participate in the presidential election, by reinforcing citizens’ and voters’ knowledge. The beneficiaries were young leaders of women’s and men’s associations from across Burkina Faso, aged 18 – 25, who were involved in and committed to civil society specific activities for the youth. Activities focused on education, training and sensitization and, subsequently, on the development of a group of young leaders that can relay information and training knowledge to members of youth organisations and to the youth of their villages. The project was firmly rooted in the socio-political and cultural context of Burkina Faso. The lack of participation of young citizens in successive elections is intrinsically linked with the lack of education, in particular citizens’ and voters’ education. In the context of a still male-dominated country, the identification of beneficiaries comprising both young men and women was also appropriate to address the political participation of women. The project was also coherent in that it covered the pre-electoral, electoral and post electoral periods.

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 project aimed to enhance meaningful and equal participation of women in democratic governance by addressing the issues of gender-based exclusion, violence and discriminatory practices. The project established National Democracy Watch Groups (NDWGs) and Local Watch Groups (LWGs). These groups were intended to promote knowledge sharing. The project organized a series of local, national and regional meetings and included a component focusing on sensitizing the media to challenge gender stereotypes. The project succeeded in reaching a significant number of people across the three countries in through the watch groups as well as through radio debates and the stories developed by journalists trained as part of the project. The project exceeded its aims. Senior members of government (both national and local), democratic institutions such as electoral commissions and senior figures in the NGO and media worlds participated in the various meetings and/or groups, embedding the information provided and the debate into key areas of governance and civil society.

The project aimed to develop the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) into a functional institution able to protect and enforce human rights in line with Ethiopian laws and international norms and standards. As the EHRC was a relatively young institution, the grantee did not only focus on the development of human rights protection skills, but prioritized in the project’s initial phase also the development of operational management capacity. The grantee could have adjusted the initial project plan to avoid overlap with activities already implemented under the Democratic Institutions Programme managed by UNDP. The relevance of the project was further limited by the grantee’s weak risk assessment and mitigation. The original design failed to appreciate the risks surrounding the project, most importantly the international grantee took permission to set up an office in Addis for granted which it then did not obtain. The project also appeared unprepared to address the challenging political environment in which the EHRC operated.

The overall objective of the project was to strengthen the participation of young people in Guatemala through training to create a base of young leaders from indigenous communities living in the Department of Alta Verapaz. The project strategy revolved around four priority components: developing the competencies of young leaders to improve their ability to assume responsibility in their communities; promoting knowledge about current legislation to foster rule of law, governance, and democracy; improving the quality of the dialogue between youth and local government to consolidate opportunities for participation; and encouraging youth to become more involved and influential in local decision-making bodies to help meet the basic needs of their communities. The approach was consistent with the grantee’s strategic goal of providing young people training in participatory civic practices, and enabling them to approach and develop responses to the problems and needs of youth in rural indigenous communities. In addition, the project’s cost-benefit ratio was positive: there was very high participation in terms of the number of benefiting communities and the number of young people completing the project’s training.

The objective of the project was to strengthen national and regional platforms of civil society organizations and to increase their influence. The project was based on the strategy that civil society platforms should play an important role in national, regional, and international negotiations. The project aimed to democratize debates on globalization and to enhance the influence of national and regional platforms on public policy-making. The project goals were: to develop national and regional NGO platforms; to enhance CSO advocacy skills through six exercises in nongovernmental diplomacy; the launch of an International NGO Resource Center; and the institutionalization and consolidation of the International Forum of National NGO Platforms. The project worked with national NGO platforms in Brazil, Chile, Senegal and the USA as well as regional platforms based in West Africa, India and Central Africa.

The project objective was to strengthen the citizenship and democratic skills of women. With virtually no access to civic information and limited opportunities for women to participate in political life including access to positions that involve decision-making, especially in rural areas, the grantee aimed to raise awareness among local authorities and strategic civil society organizations in Haiti, so they would become more engaged in promoting a culture that recognizes the role of women in society, fostering in women and men alike a new perspective on their political participation. The project was implemented in twenty rural communes, notably in very remote, virtually ignored sections of Haiti, which lacked basic, educational and health services. With regards to its objective, the project was fully aligned with current government priorities, and in the context of elections, it recognized the need for women to participate fully in the electoral process, as well as in political affairs and to become aware of their civil rights and rights as citizens.