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:

Although all planned activities were carried out, three unplanned activities were undertaken and the project was able to reach a large number of women, none of the expected goals were achieved. The grantee opted for an all-encompassing approach, rather than a more rigorous approach which would have contributed to the final objective. Beneficiaries were identified via a system of suggestions coming from the three regions without there being any kind of control mechanism in place and women leaders could not be efficiently identified. There is no indication of women leaders having been identified in all 17 provinces and thereby covering the whole country

Theme: Women's empowerment
Burundi   , ,
Project: Rural Media Development for Promoting Democracy and Human Rights
Evaluation Date: November 2017
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The project was well designed – it targeted 12 of the most marginalized districts in the country, this was a manageable number, and meant that implementation was achieved without the grantee becoming overstretched. While there may have been other ways of designing the project e.g. concentrating resources geographically, or on specific issues or beneficiary groups, the design helped create a foundation for national geographic coverage and visibility and also meant that a wide variety of human rights issues were covered instead of specifics relevant to particular localities only e.g. coastal fisherman or tribal hill communities.

Theme: Media
Bangladesh   ,
Project: Promoting Good Governance among Tribal Inhabitants in Bangladesh (PROGGATI)
Evaluation Date: December 2013
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The cascade nature of the project structure made it possible for the grantee to reach the grass roots, but the distances – in terms of time to travel – were great, which limited the ability of the grantee to monitor activities and provide mentoring at the community level. The project did not develop synergies with other ongoing projects, several of which were governance related and which could have helped extend its reach and increased its impact.

Theme: Community activism
Bangladesh   ,
Project: Strengthening the Political Participation of Communities of Former Slaves
Evaluation Date: January 2015
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The project was supported by a project manager based in Nouakchott (around 1,000 km away from the zone of intervention) and had a team of two facilitators in Aîoun, the capital of the region, located about 100 km from the villages targeted. Given the limited human resources available for the project, it did not sufficiently consider the geographical challenges of the region, in which villages are widely dispersed and difficult to access given the lack of roads. Remote project management and external consultants caused an imbalanced budget, which was to the detriment of beneficiaries.

Theme: Community activism
Mauritania   , ,
Project: Civil Society Support Initiative on Political Marginalization in the Niger Delta in Nigeria
Evaluation Date: December 2012
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The decision by the grantee to stretch activities across all nine states in the Niger Delta diminished the level of investment available for activities at each project site. While the geographic span of activity increased the visibility of the project, it reduced the prospect for impact and enhancing prospects for sustainability of results. A more focused project, limiting activities to, perhaps, three states would have provided a more effective basis for testing and refining the methodology, and building the foundation for more ambitious efforts in the future.

Theme: Community activism
Nigeria   ,
Project: Raising Awareness about Women's Social, Political and Economic Rights in Afghanistan
Evaluation Date: April 2014
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The Project Document indicated the intention to conduct activities in 15 of 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces, situated in all four geographic regions of the country. In mounting such an ambitious effort, the grantee reduced the prospects for achieving results through a scattering of activities in locations throughout the country. It is apparent that the grantee failed to appreciate the scale of the risk it was taking on. Beyond this, weak integration of activities by project management, and a failure by the grantee to collaborate closely with its implementing partners, limited both the effectiveness and the impact of the project.

Theme: Women's empowerment
Afghanistan   , ,