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Project: Tracking Campaign Promises in Albania
Evaluation Date: January 2023
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Given the high relevance and importance of the “truth-o-meter”, the design should have paid more attention (and allocate the necessary resources) to the promotion and communication of the tool and the results. There could have been public conferences and/or round tables with all concerned MPs, CSOs, communities, and media to discuss findings and generate public debates. Therefore, promoting innovative tools to a wide range of stakeholders is as important as their development, otherwise the impact of such tools remains limited and untapped.

Theme: Interaction with government

Albania audience, awareness, budget, civil society, communication, community, engagement, governance, impact, local government, project design, promotion, public, publicity, stakeholder, tools

Project: Tracking Campaign Promises in Albania
Evaluation Date: January 2023
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

One of the main problems of this project was that its design robustness could have been reinforced by a more detailed and comprehensive needs assessment in smaller vs. bigger municipalities in order to avoid obsolescence in some big municipalities. Consequently, inappropriate and generalised needs assessments that lead to a “one size fits all” approach can negatively affect the impact’s likelihood.

Theme: Interaction with government

Albania analysis, assess, assessment, beneficiaries, budget, community, data, engagement, governance, impact, local government, measure, needs, project design, scope, stakeholder, tools

Project: Strengthening Media to Promote Inclusive Democracy in Mali
Evaluation Date: January 2023
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Sensitivity to local languages should be an essential part of project design and delivery in countries where such diversity exists (as was the case with this project in the use of Bambara for local radio broadcasting to maximise impact for non-French speaking listeners), though this may bring additional challenges in terms of measuring and evaluating the success of an intervention.

Theme: Media

Mali audience, beneficiaries, evaluate, grassroots, impact, implementation, inclusion, journalism, language, measure, media, outreach, project design, radio, reach, results, target

Project: Strengthening Media to Promote Inclusive Democracy in Mali
Evaluation Date: January 2023
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Without losing sight of the importance of Civil and Political Rights, a focus on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights can be more impactful in certain restricting contexts, and pave the way (e.g., with “transitional” authorities) for the advocacy of a wider spectrum of human rights when circumstances allow.

Theme: Media

Mali advocate, change, culture, economy, empowerment, impact, media, project design, rights, social, transition

Project: Jeunesse et participation électorale au Burkina Faso
Evaluation Date: May 2022
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Grantees need to be disciplined in their monitoring and reporting, making best use of the comprehensive guidance available on the UNDEF website. Grantees should feel free to suggest to UNDEF alternative baselines, target indicators and means of verification if data collection against initially planned Results Frameworks proves more difficult than expected or impossible.

Theme: Women's empowerment

Burkina Faso baseline, data, impact, indicator, measure, monitor, plan, project design, project management, report, results, target

Project: Transparency and Public Accountability in Education in Brazil
Evaluation Date: June 2020
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

For an objective assessment of the project impact, the results frameworks must contain baseline, indicators and target that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART). Use a Monitoring work-plan to determine how the project’s specific activities and results are contributing to the achievement of the project’s outcomes and final impact.

Theme: Interaction with government

Brazil baseline, impact, indicator, measure, monitoring, objective, plan, relevant, results, results framework, SMART, target

Project: Empowering Female and Youth Domestic Workers in Uganda
Evaluation Date: September 2020
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Training individual duty-bearers can impact on their own attitudes but rarely has a wider or organizational impact.

Theme: Rule of law

Uganda impact, stakeholder, training

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

Lesson Learned:

Elections-related projects aimed at contributing to the democratic consolidation, cannot be seen as self-sufficient, stand-alone initiatives. In the current case, not considering the deviation of the team’s assumptions from the actual baseline and the lack of subsequent review of the implementation strategy negatively affected the project’s relevance and overall impact. When drafting and implementing such projects, it is therefore important to consider the wide range of factors related not only to the micro dimension but also those related to the macro dimension, which are relevant for the project’s integration and relevance within the larger policy context and important for the sustainability and impact to reach beyond the project’s immediate lifetime.

Theme: Community activism

Georgia analysis, baseline, context, democracy, elections, impact, policy, project design, relevant, sustainable

Project: Learning Democracy DemoLab in Hungary
Evaluation Date: September 2020
Report: [report link]

Lesson Learned:

Projects often trigger soft outcomes (e.g. openness, more respect towards other, team work, etc.) – or the impacts are only visible in the longer run – and therefore are hard to measure.

However, it is important to think about meaningful and appropriate indicators and ways to measure them that can be realistically followed up later.

Theme: Youth engagement

Hungary impact, indicator, measure

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