Project: Creative Communication of the Nigerian Budget
Evaluation Date: July 2018
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

While civil society organizations are interested in budget monitoring and are seeking to build their capacities in this area, the project did not succeed in engaging them with project implementation activities with communities. However, the project did succeed in enhancing skills and capacities of the grantee. Positive outcomes for the grantee include the winning of a proposal to conduct a budget tracking activity on nutrition with UNICEF. In this way, UNDEF funds helped to enhance the grantee’s network with other UN organizations.

Theme: Media
Project: Youth local councils for civic engagement and social change in Palestine
Evaluation Date: December 2013
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The young people themselves had creative ideas about how to secure both funds and in-kind support for their activities; however repeatedly having to source such support can over time become a disincentive to participation. Despite the strong commitment to volunteerism created and promoted by the project, it would have been a good idea to increase the attention given to fundraising during the training provided to the elected Youth Local Council members and to bring in an experienced fundraiser to deliver such training so that the young participants would have access to the resources necessary to implement their many creative ideas.

Theme: Youth engagement
Project: Empowering Civil Society Groups to Promote Social Accountability
Evaluation Date: June 2014
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

The project worked constructively to draw attention to deficiencies in governance in Papua, and contributed to building a broader awareness of social accountability and what it entails. There was potential for the project to have a catalytic effect. As the grantee represented a highly-credible, mainstream Indonesian policy research institution, it would have been in a position to facilitate dialogue between government and civil society in Papua in a way that locally-based organizations might find more difficult. Had it managed to secure additional funding, lessons learned from the project could have represented a beginning rather than an end.

Theme: Community activism
Project: Media and art as catalysts for free speech and access to information in Jordan
Evaluation Date: January 2015
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

There were concerns about the sustainability of the project’s outcomes as well as the sustainability of the grantee itself. The grantee’s institutional funding model is project-focused and no serious consideration seems to have been given to diversifying funding sources or raising income in other ways. Without project funding, there are many ‘down times’ that lead the volunteers becoming disillusioned and websites become dated.

Theme: Media