Sierra Leone

Project: Initiative to Build Social Movements in Sierra Leone
Evaluation Date: May 2016
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The project could have been more effective by providing support to existing advocacy engagements by the participants (CSO and CSO platforms) platforms on the issues that were identified during the training sessions. Project funds could have been set aside for this purpose, which would have provided platform managers with an incentive to develop and implement strategies for engagement with relevant decision-makers. As it was, the platform leaders who became aware of needs and opportunities for advocacy were often unable to address these, due to lack of resources.

Theme: Community activism
Sierra Leone   ,
Project: Initiative to Build Social Movements in Sierra Leone
Evaluation Date: May 2016
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

While participants from civil society organizations and platforms welcomed training provided by the grantee to improve CSO management and coordination they were not necessarily ready to implement the new skills acquired if it required additional resources. For the same reasons, the enhancement of platform and CSO leaders’ management skills did not necessarily result in additional advocacy activities. The project’s relevance could have been enhanced, by providing incentives for platforms to develop joint advocacy or campaigns.

Theme: Community activism
Sierra Leone, Sub-Saharan Africa   , ,
Project: Democratic Dialogue through Media in Sierra Leone
Evaluation Date: March 2011
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

Flaws in design and strategy hampered the relevance of the project: lack of explicit engagement with editors/publishers and with relevant high-level institutional actors. These weaknesses were already visible in the project document: the “Situation Analysis” section appropriately identified the needs summarised above, as well as the views of civil society about the media, but did not provide an analysis of the causes of the identified weaknesses. The project document lacked an explicit stakeholder analysis that would have identified the project’s planned level of engagement with each stakeholder, the message directed at them and the engagement techniques to be used. In other words, the project document was built on the assumption that improving journalistic skills in human rights reporting, together with activities such as NGO and community training, would lead to enhanced democratic debate. But there was no explicit description of how these results would derive from the planned activities.

Theme: Media
Sierra Leone   , , ,
Project: Democratic Dialogue through Media in Sierra Leone
Evaluation Date: March 2011
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The project design should have included a more explicit strategy to address editors and publishers, particularly those of media outlets to which trainers were assigned. The grantee sent trainers to selected media outlets, which had made a formal expression of interest and had received a briefing about the tasks to be carried out by the trainers and the support that the media outlets were expected to give. In addition, each media organisation was asked to sign a Memorandum of Understanding setting out each side’s key responsibilities. This MoU covered a range of practical issues, but did not require media outlets to commit themselves to enhance their coverage of human rights issues, or otherwise to facilitate the fulfilment of the project’s objective.

Theme: Media
Sierra Leone   , ,