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Project: Engaging Civil Society in a Democratic Election Process in Sudan, Bahrain, Tunisia and Jordan
Evaluation Date: March 2011
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The project created tightly networked, mobile elite of regional experts on elections monitoring, trainings, and provision of elections monitoring services. This made elections expertise more accessible in the region. At the individual level, the people who received training were more likely to continue to be engaged in community activism.

Theme: Community activism

Bahrain, Jordan, Tunisia elections, regional

Project: Towards a better electoral process in Mongolia
Evaluation Date: November 2011
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Election observer training was done far in advance of the elections; this helped ensure that the CSOs and parties kept a focus on the upcoming electoral process and the need to prepare for their observation effort, especially as 2012 was the first elections where CSO observers were to be allowed. However, this meant that the material was more generic than would have been had otherwise, and that the participating organizations would need to supplement this training later on with the specifics for the 2012 election, such as the new electronic way to count the ballots.

Theme: Community activism

Mongolia elections, planning, training

Project: Citizen Journalists for Free and Fair Elections in Georgia
Evaluation Date: April 2014
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The project itself was focused on the Georgia parliamentary elections event and the structures created were not used for the remainder of the electoral cycle, notably the 2013 presidential election which was held within the life of this project, and the upcoming 2014 local elections.

Theme: Media

Georgia elections, leverage

Project: Improving the Participation of 155 Women's Groups
Evaluation Date: October 2013
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The most significant result of the project was the election of a woman to the position of mayor of her village. Another woman was named as second head of her village, which had been completely inconceivable before. It will be important to consolidate and further expand these results, as it can be expected that more women will want to exercise their civil rights and wish to become potential candidates during future elections. However, women are often handicapped by illiteracy and they also need a certain level of financial autonomy in order to stand as candidates in the up-coming elections.

Theme: Women's empowerment

Côte d'Ivoire economics, education, elections, empowerment

Project: Towards a better electoral process in Mongolia
Evaluation Date: November 2011
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The grantee prepaid for the activities that it wanted to undertake after the official end of the project. This included the entire public awareness campaign (printing and disseminating posters and handouts, and media spots). This ensured that they had time slots available, as the time for the electoral campaign is very short in Mongolia, and other NGOs and CSOs found out the hard way that all of the available advertising time had already been bought out by the two main political parties when they tried to buy time closer to the elections.

Theme: Community activism

Mongolia elections, media, planning, publicity

Project: Underpinning and developing the democratic electoral processes in Azerbaijan
Evaluation Date: August 2010
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The major weakness of the project from a relevance point of view was that it bore no real relationship to needed governance reforms. The elections process in Azerbaijan is flawed. While increasing women’s participation in a flawed process is a valid goal, the project would have added more value if it had addressed basic issues in governance. While the project may have had some impact on women’s empowerment, it had none on democratization.

Theme: Community activism

Azerbaijan elections, participation, reform

Project: Fostering the Electoral Participation of Internally Displaced Persons in Georgia
Evaluation Date: November 2021
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

This project, as designed and presented had the potential to develop into a forward-looking program with a far-reaching positive impact on increasing the target population’s participation in elections as voters and as candidates. Though most of the expected outputs were successfully delivered, their impact was rather limited. LAG put efforts into producing the outputs in quantity, but due to the lack of programmatic approach and appropriate followup missed an opportunity to ensure their long-term applicability. In some cases, especially as regards the two main assets developed within the project’s framework – the Trainers’ Pool and the capacitated CSOs, this resulted in insufficient performance. Applying the mechanisms and capacity developed within the project’s framework during the 2021 municipal and subsequent elections would be instrumental in increasing the sustainability of the project’s results and its longer-term impact.

Theme: Community activism

Georgia candidate, capacity, elections, impact, long-term, output, participation, project design, result, sustainable, target, training, voter

Project: Prévention de la violence durant la période électorale de 2010
Evaluation Date: November 2011
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The media coverage of the project helped remind stakeholders of the importance of maintaining peace in order to hold free, peaceful and reassuring elections. Media coverage on the concerns of citizens regarding security issues and on whether or not their aspirations and hopes regarding the electoral programmes would be taken into account, allowed the grantee to bring grassroots populations closer to political decision makers in Burundi and reinforce its strategy for advocacy.

Theme: Rule of law

Burundi elections, grassroots, leverage, media, post-conflict

Project: Appui à la participation politique et citoyenne de la femme dans le processus démocratique au Burundi
Evaluation Date: November 2011
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

The project was closely linked to the 2010 electoral challenges in Burundi to encourage women to vote and to stand for election. The election process, with a mandatory quota of 30% female representatives within institutions, was an important lever to generate collective awareness among all these leaders and shapers of opinion. This project also went beyond the elections by suggesting the creation of a National Forum for dialogue, allowing women leaders to overcome political differences and to exchange ideas on priorities to be implemented in order to improve the living conditions of Burundian women.

Theme: Women's empowerment

Burundi dialogue, elections, women

Project: Promoting the representation of Malagasy Women in Political and Public Affairs
Evaluation Date: February 2015
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Nine woman candidates trained by the project were elected in the 2013 parliamentary elections. The training sessions were an important first step, however sustained mentoring and support will be required to ensure the women elected can continue to promote the gender equality agenda.

Theme: Women's empowerment

Madagascar elections, parliament, women

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