scope

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

The grantee relied heavily on personal contacts to recruit participants, including journalists from the Charter of Ethical Journalists which the grantee had created under an earlier EU project. This was efficient since these people were known to be independent and helped maintain the perception of impartiality. At the same time, this limited the reach of the project to people who were already civically active. There were no links apparent between this effort and other more substantial efforts for citizen journalism, election reporting or observation. The reach of the project could have been extended through better use of social networks beyond the staff’s Facebook pages, and the use of participating media organizations to promote citizen reporting, the website and project purpose.

Theme: Media
Georgia   , ,
Project: Empowering Local CSOs in Yemen through Participation in Local Governance
Evaluation Date: May 2015
Report: [report link]
Lesson Learned:

There were two different types of outcome at local level: dialogue between communities and local authorities; and facilitation of urgent development/humanitarian activities. These were sometimes confused. In addition, the project sought to achieve outcomes internal to the NGO movement, by helping build NGO project management capacity and reinforce accountability and transparency within civil society. While these outcomes were all relevant, their achievement in four different locations including Sana’a was challenging, particularly in view of the ambitious objectives the project was meant to fulfill.

Theme: Community activism
Yemen   ,