capacity

Projects on democratic governance involving Local Government Unit partnerships should fully anticipate the expected effects brought about by major political events, such as national and local elections, as these can disrupt planned project activities. As was the case in some municipalities included in the project, the change of leadership after the elections resulted in the duplication of project activities, for example, the orientation provided to the Local Chief Executive, which negatively affected the project milestones and budget.

There should be a more nuanced, context-specific approach to empowering the Organizations of Persons with Disabilities. In the present project, some Organizations of Persons with Disabilities were more organizationally mature, with empowered leaders. This variation, especially regarding organizational maturity, should have been better captured in the rapid appraisal conducted at the onset of the project, enabling a more efficient organizational capacitation plan for each organization.

Connected support to enhance individual women’s capabilities and empowerment is important for women’s collective action. Support to build individual women’s leadership capacities is particularly important to build leadership skills and political capacities in order for them to work effectively with existing systems and political processes. In this case, while the Implementing Partner was successful in mobilizing and raising awareness for collective action among the Musahar women, focused support to build women’s capacities in communications and leadership would have further enhanced their ability to lead the women forums.