Europe

Project: Empowering people through citizens’ journalism in Albania
Evaluation Date: October 2011
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The project objectives and activities were relevant given the difficulties of youth and civil society organizations in Albania to access the media, voice their opinion or raise social issues. Although the Albanian media is free, mainstream media requires payment for airtime that NGOs cannot afford, and it has shown a general lack of interest in covering social issues as part of the news. Organizations were extremely interested in obtaining access to media, especially if it was free of charge and could reach a national audience as was intended with the university radio in Tirana. Participating youth were interested in citizen journalism and reporting on social issues.

Theme: Media
Albania   ,
Project: Underpinning and developing the democratic electoral processes in Azerbaijan
Evaluation Date: August 2010
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

Pairing with a more adversarial and higher-capacity NGO would have greatly leveraged project accomplishments and contributed to sustainability by better building capacity. No Memoranda of Understanding setting forth expectations and responsibilities were ever signed between the grantee and partners. The evaluators’ opinion is that these partnerships appear to have been based more on acquaintanceships and familiarity rather than strategic considerations. Neither partner organization had ever been involved in an elections project before.

Theme: Community activism
Azerbaijan   ,