Burundi

This project was focused on the preparations for the general election planned for 2015 in Burundi. This project was implemented in the 13 municipalities of the capital of the country, Bujumbura and it targeted its municipal elected councilors, political parties’ leaders and Parliamentarians.

The project strategy assessed the needs of municipal elected councillors’ through a survey. Based on this the project undertook trainings, meetings, and debates amongst political leaders and Parliamentarians. The project also translated the Electoral Code into Kirundi from French to make it more accessible to citizens. This activity was not foreseen in the project document. The project aimed to propose improvements to the electoral code however, the electoral code was already modified by the authorities and agreed political parties when the project started.

The grantee did not differentiate between political leaders and elected members when targeting participants. All elected members are not always political leaders and vice versa. The grantee did not take into account the pyramidal structure of political parties in Burundi in which only few people decide for all members. Interviewees’ comments showed that beneficiaries do not consider themselves as autonomous political actors who can activate internal changes within their own political parties. The change of beneficiaries’ perceptions is essentially individual opinions, which are not able to have an impact on political parties’ practices.

The logic of intervention of this project did not fully take into account the rift that exists between the centre and the periphery in Burundi: between the governing and the elected community and collines representatives, who for the main part merely execute power. The project intervention logic overestimated the level of impetus that could come from community leaders. The theory according to which the grassroots population would become more dynamic if only they knew their leaders better was overly optimistic, especially when considering the level of education that these populations have and the traumatic war experiences that are still very present within these communities.

The project was closely linked to the 2010 electoral challenges in Burundi to encourage women to vote and to stand for election. The election process, with a mandatory quota of 30% female representatives within institutions, was an important lever to generate collective awareness among all these leaders and shapers of opinion. This project also went beyond the elections by suggesting the creation of a National Forum for dialogue, allowing women leaders to overcome political differences and to exchange ideas on priorities to be implemented in order to improve the living conditions of Burundian women.

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

The media coverage of the project helped remind stakeholders of the importance of maintaining peace in order to hold free, peaceful and reassuring elections. Media coverage on the concerns of citizens regarding security issues and on whether or not their aspirations and hopes regarding the electoral programmes would be taken into account, allowed the grantee to bring grassroots populations closer to political decision makers in Burundi and reinforce its strategy for advocacy.

In view of the time and the human resources which were allocated to this project, it would have been important for the grantee to adjust the number of planned activities and to focus on a coherent, qualitative process, within which the activities would have complemented one another. Similarly the activities should have been implemented in such a way to establish a clearer relationship between national and local level.

The grantee was unaware of the impact the political parties have on the alleged independence of candidates, representatives and leaders in the administration. The evaluation revealed that the true impact of women leaders within the political parties relied mainly on co-operation and loyalty to leading figures.

The theoretical content of the training sessions, which were carried out almost exclusively in French even though women in rural zones rarely speak anything other than Kirundi, meant that the needs of the beneficiaries could not be efficiently met.