Promoting the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance

A thorough inventory of the websites of six participating national NGOs was disappointing. Only one referred to the project, and then only in a brief summary identifying UNDEF as the funder. More worrisome, none of the websites made reference to the African Charter at all. This suggests that the empowerment that undoubtedly occurred was more an empowerment of individuals than an empowerment of institutions. It also underscores the point that most (not all) African democracy NGOs are focused on national issues.

A thorough inventory of the websites of the six participating national NGOs was disappointing. Only one referred to the project, and then only in a brief summary identifying UNDEF as the funder. More worrisome, none of the websites made reference to the African Charter at all. This suggests that the empowerment that undoubtedly occurred was more an empowerment of individuals than an empowerment of institutions. It also underscores the point that most (not all) African democracy NGOs are focused on national issues.

The project empowered individuals more than institutions. Much of this empowerment occurred in the context of international travel and meetings financed by the project (including CIDA funding). It is likely that impacts would have been greater had there been more funds available to finance in-country activities.

The sustainability of the project will depend on continued political will both of the governments involved but also of the African Union who would need to put in place monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.

Too much money was spent on travel and meetings so the amount available for in-country for advocacy activities was reduced. This might have accounted for the high number of planned in-country activities that were not implemented. Additional funds spent in-country would have leveraged what the project achieved and, by increasing impact, would have increased efficiency as well.

The project focused on process strengthening rather than outcome achievement. This is notable given many applicants tend to promise to over-deliver.

In October 2010, co-financing from Canadian CIDA was obtained, and the grantee explicitly credited the UNDEF “brand” for making possible the additional funds. With these funds, activities of the UNDEF project were increased and two additional countries were added.

The project strategy was sound, the research design was appropriate, and the researchers chosen to implement it were of excellent quality. The project was born of policy elites, implemented by policy elites, delivered results of direct relevance only to policy elites, yet promises substantial benefits to all the people of Africa, who will benefit from democracy.

The regional project to promote the African Charter on Democracy was an example of how a closely related bundle of activities can function well as a logically-structured project, however, the implementing partner had very high capacity and the network infrastructure relating the players was already in place.

The shifting project focus regarding promoting of the African Charter on Democracy, including changes in target countries, was both a strong and a weak point of the project from the standpoints of effectiveness and impact. Flexibility allowed the project to respond to changing circumstances and priorities.