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Project: Water and sanitation for all: for a strong and heard civil society in West Africa
Evaluation Date: April 2016
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Several platform representatives noted that the UNDEF project led to enhancing their professional skills across the region. The capacity building also helped enhance platforms’ resilience and technical capacity and also their capacity to attract the attention of other development actors, including future donors. Enhanced technical capabilities generate research and strategy development capacity, which should be directed towards the elaboration of future projects in order to reinforce sustainability and credibility vis-à-vis government authorities and potential donors.

Theme: Interaction with government

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo capacity, sustainability

Project: JOINT Contribution to Strengthen and Expand Democracy in Mozambique
Evaluation Date: June 2014
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The main partner NGOs in Manica and the grantee designed the project collaboratively. The NGOs in Manica were concerned that their capacity would be stretched by the ambitious expected project outcomes. Their concerns were not reflected in the design, and the final proposal to UNDEF maintained the three-pronged approach of NGO capacity building, government dialogue and legal aid. The capacity building provided to NGOs was essentially on specific rights awareness and governance skills, but was not designed to address NGOs’ structural/operational weaknesses.

Theme: Community activism

Mozambique capacity building, collaboration, risk

Project: Democratizing governance for development: LDC civil society engagement
Evaluation Date: August 2012
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The relevance of the project is questionable, however, in relation to the capacity building and empowerment of constituent CSOs who participated in the project. Insufficient attention was paid to the capacity-building needs of the CSO partners.

Theme: Community activism

Angola, Bhutan, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Senegal, Solomon Islands, Tanzania, United Republic of, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia capacity, partners

Project: Strengthening Governance and Democratization Processes in Kenya and the East and Central Africa Region
Evaluation Date: May 2013
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

To enhance the capacity of the newly established Office of the Registrar of Political Parties in Kenya, the grantee organized study tours to Canada, Mexico and Ghana. While the tours were useful in raising awareness of participants, there was no plan for how new knowledge and recommendations should be incorporated into the organization. Study tours should have been part of a broader institutional capacity building effort that also provided follow-up activities.

Theme: Community activism

Kenya capacity, institution, study tour

Project: Citizen Participation to Improve Local Governance
Evaluation Date: January 2014
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

By the end of the project, the capacity of the Citizen Participation Cells (CPC) was still basic. The CPCs’ technical capacity could be strengthened through working groups on different themes such as skills and municipal responsibilities and by paying specific attention to the gender dimension in municipal policy management.

Theme: Community activism

Benin capacity, skills

Project: Democracy Academy for Young Adults in El Salvador
Evaluation Date: March 2023
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The project was conceived as a comprehensive capacity development project with an approach involving participants into the development of replication strategies and the development of common actions and strategies in traditional and non-traditional communication spaces. However, during its implementation, the project has mainly been an academic endeavour, with a rather classic approach to capacity development methodologies and systems. In this project, as designed, the components of socialisation by the students as well as the engagement with public authorities should have remained a priority, and practical, on-the-job training approaches should have been privileged as originally foreseen. If these practical aspects are not considered a priority, a more standardized approach to capacity development should be followed at the project design stage.

UDF-17-783-ELS

Theme: Youth engagement, Interaction with government

El Salvador academia, approach, capacity, effective, engagement, government, multiply, participation, practice, project design, strategy, training, youth

Project: Bytes Without Borders in Morocco
Evaluation Date: September 2018
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The capacity-building process is a marathon, not a sprint. It must involve regular coaching of trainees and performance monitoring in order to ensure sustainability. In order for capacity-building activities to achieve their intended results, one must ensure the activities are inclusive to all, including the vulnerable and illiterate. The use of audio-visual approaches in social media has proved to reach a larger number of people than the ‘class-format’ approach.

Theme: Media

Morocco capacity building, inclusion, social media, sustainability

Project: Fostering Ethical Democracy and Advancing Micro Justice in India
Evaluation Date: September 2018
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Civil society organizations have the unique ability to act as a ‘bridge’ between service providers and users, building the capacity of marginalized groups that do not have the capacity to take advantage of the services available to them as well as helping service providers reach beneficiaries.

Theme: Rule of law

India capacity building, CSO, inclusion

Project: Civil Society Monitoring of Governorate Councils in Iraq
Evaluation Date: August 2014
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The monitoring training had some weaknesses. The training attempted to cover a great deal of detail, much of it technical, in two, short intensive workshops. More time should have been given to allow the trainees to fully absorb new knowledge. Another weakness was the decision to provide monitoring training to only one individual per partner organization. Such an approach limited the opportunity to build CSO institutional capacity, and is likely to limit the depth of commitment of the participating organizations to the monitoring process in Iraq.

Theme: Interaction with government

Iraq capacity, training

Project: Civil Society to Monitor and Contribute to Transparency and Anti-Corruption Policies in Moldova
Evaluation Date: January 2015
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

A centrepiece of the grantee’s efforts to build the capacity of smaller NGOs – both members and non-members of the Anti-Corruption Alliance in Moldova – was the small grants programmes. By providing preliminary training, financial and advisory support to NGOs, the project assisted in enhancing their skills in project design and implementation, while also contributing to their self-confidence in undertaking advocacy with local government. Some valuable ideas and approaches to local level anti-corruption work were piloted in the course of the sub-projects, and many of these could be considered as the basis for future initiatives.

Theme: Rule of law

Moldova, Republic of capacity, grants, partners

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