Sri Lanka Evaluations
 | Final Evaluation: Women in Learning and Leadership (WILL): Strengthening Women’s Voice and Participation in Political Decision-Making in Sri LankaThe project implemented from January 2020 to July 2022 (including a 6-month extension) by Search was funded by the European Union under its ‘Enhancing Community Service Organisations’ Contribution to Governance and Development Process in Sri Lanka’ programme. The theory of change that underpins the project assumes that “if local women CSO leaders and locally elected women leaders increase their capacity to participate in decision-making in a way that is more accountable to their local constituencies; if elected women leaders enhance their collaboration with their local communities; if the local media actors increase their capacity to challenge negative stereotypes and enable positive attitudes towards women’s role in decision making; and if the public is aware of the positive role women can play in policy decision-making and democratic processes, then local women organisations and locally elected women leaders can improve their effective participation in local policy decision making and in the overall democratic processes.” Based on these assumptions, the project was designed through a consultative process with key stakeholders involved, including the Federation of Sri Lankan Local Government Authorities (FSLGA), and elected women leaders who were involved in previous projects. The project was implemented in partnership with the FSLGA, Affected Women’s Forum (AWF) from Akkaraipattu in Ampara, Women’s Resource Centre (WRC) from Kurunegala, Women Development Centre from Jaffna and Women’s Development Centre from Badulla. |
| FINAL EVALUATION: Young Women as Drivers of Peace: Providing 360° Support to Emerging LeadersProject: Young Women as Drivers of Peace: Providing 360° Support to Emerging Women In a context where young women are already marginalised and the potential role they can play in peacebuilding is limited to rhetoric, implementing actions to strengthen their capacities is important. Equipping young women with the necessary knowledge and tools and supporting the creation of a conducive environment can lend towards addressing some of these issues. In terms of knowledge and skills on conflict resolution, YWLs have reported an improvement. Even though there were some challenges in terms of understanding key concepts such as the problem tree and conflict mapping, a high percentage of trained YWLs agree that their knowledge has increased since the training. This includes knowledge on conflict drivers (72 percent), conflict assessment tools (78 percent) and conflict resolution (83 percent). Furthermore, the knowledge and skills required to design project interventions also improved. 86 percent of YWLs believe that they have gained knowledge and skills on proposal development, 81 percent on setting targets for achievements and 73 percent believe they gained knowledge on developing budgets. The Young Women Ladders successfully managed and implemented 20 small grant initiatives by monitoring and measure the changes by themselves. |
| Final Evaluation report of the Community Memorialization Project (CMP) in Sri LankaThis is the final evaluation report of the Community Memorialization Project (CMP), implemented by Search for Common Ground, Sri Lanka and HerStories project (http://herstoryarchive.org) together with local partners Akkaraipattu Women’s Development Foundation in Ampara, Viluthu Centre for Human Resources Development in Mannar; Prathiba Media Network in Matara and Sarvodaya in Anuradhapura, Moneragala and Kalutara, with funds provided by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL). The project was implemented in two Phases: Phase I, from September 2015 to April 2018, was implemented in three districts, Matara in the South, Ampara in the East and Mannar in the North of Sri Lanka. In Phase II, the project was extended to cover new divisions in the existing three districts as well as three new districts; Kalutara in the South, Anuradhapura in the North Centre, and Moneragala in the Uva Province. Phase II was implemented from August 2018 to January 2020. The CMP was implemented as an exploratory project, to pilot innovative activities as well as to learn from the project experience about using memory to promote non-recurrence of violence. While its three main objectives remained the same through Phase I and Phase II, project activities, outputs and expected outcomes were regularly reviewed and revised, with the support of the DE methodology, in line with what was being learned about what was working and what was not, and what was changing in the context. Te report captures the success of the project and learning for the futire. |
| Final External Evaluation: Sri Lankans Mobilised to Achieve Reconciliation and Transformation (SMART)The reports present the findings of the Final External Evaluation of the project ‘Sri Lankans Mobilized to Achieve Reconciliation and Transformation’ (SMART) implemented by Search for Common Ground (SFCG) Sri Lanka together with Peace and Community Action (PCA) and Association for War Affected Women (AWAW), two national NGOs operating in Sri Lanka. The project was funded by European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) country based support scheme 2014 for a period of 24 months. The SMART project’s overall objective was to empower divided communities to contribute towards reconciliation in post-war Sri Lanka. It aimed at increasing the capacity of youth, religious and community leaders to initiate activities for reconciliation in their community; promoting local level collaborative initiatives that facilitate inter-ethnic and interreligious coexistence, and increasing civic engagement around the implementation of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Report. The main activities of the project were capacity building, engagement and collaboration and dialogue sessions on LLRC implementation/transitional justice. The project was implemented in three districts of Sri Lanka, namely, Matara in the Southern Province, Ampara in the Eastern province and Mannar in the Northern province. The evaluation found that the project has made some significant strides towards achieving the objectives with increased capacity of youth, religious and community leaders to initiate activities for reconciliation in their community, promotion of local level collaborative initiatives that facilitate inter-ethnic and interreligious coexistence and increased civic engagement around transitional justice interventions as guided by the LLRC recommendations report. |
| Final Evaluation: Women in Local GovernanceThe report presents the findings of the external Final evaluation of the “Women in Local Governance” Project implemented by Search for Common Ground (SFCG) Sri Lanka, in partnership with two national partners, the Association for War Affected Women (AWAW) and Women’s Media Collective (WMC), along with three district partners namely Women’s Resource Centre (WRC), Women Development Centre (WDC) and Foundation for Rural Empowerment in Digamadulla (FRED). The project worked with aspiring women leaders in the three selected districts of Kurunegala, Badulla, and Ampara. The project intended to strengthen the capacity of emerging women, political leaders, to engage in local governance in selected districts; create a positive public attitude towards women as political leaders; and engage political parties to increase participation of women in local authorities. The evaluation found that the project was highly relevant in the current context of Sri Lanka and was effective in enhancing the leadership capacity of women considering the forthcoming local government election in Sri Lanka. |
| Final Evaluation for the TEAM ProjectThis report presents the findings of the final external evaluation of the project, “TEAM/TOUR (Team Outreach for Reconciliation) was implemented to produce and air the episodic TV series ‘Team’ (known as Sikka TEAM in Sri Lanka), which merges the global appeal of sport (Cricket) with drama to help transform social attitudes and reduce violent behavior. An abridged version of Sikka Team and small community grants were utilized to implement outreach activities in five Districts. The initiatives worked with women and youth to foster reconciliation and promote stronger interethnic and interreligious relationships between communities. |
 | Final Evaluation: “Citizens in Governance”This is the report of the external evaluation of the project “Citizens in Governance: Promoting Collaboration in Local Governance” Implemented by Search for Common Ground (SFCG) during the period of January 2013 – March 2016. This two year was funded by European Union and was implemented in six districts namely Ampara, Batticaloa, Vavuniya, Mannar, Kandy, and Nuwara-Eliya. The overall objective of this project was to improve local service delivery through increased cooperation between Pradeshiya Sabhas and Non State Actors (NSAs). The project intended to engage with PSs to advocate for better policies and delivery of; to improve the policies and operations of PSs; and to increase collaborative efforts between PSs and local NSAs in the targeted divisions. The evaluation found that i) PSs and NSAs are better able to work together to deliver more effective local services to marginalized and vulnerable populations by the end of the project; ii) there is increased cooperation between target communities, NSAs and PSs to promote improved governance and equitable access to resources and services (e.g. citizen welfare and poverty reduction schemes; and iii) marginalized groups and individuals in targeted communities are able to contribute to PSs processes. There are few lesson learned from the project which are described in detail in the report. |