Lebanon Evaluations
 | Midterm Evaluation – Partners for JusticeThis report captures findings from the midterm evaluation of the project “Partners for Justice” implemented by Search since September 2019. The overall goal of this project has been to reduce violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Lebanon by raising awareness on gender equality, equitable masculinities, shaping attitudes of men, women, boys, and girls on VAWG, and creating opportunities for men and boys to become allies in ending VAWG in the targeted five geographic areas (Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Bekaa, South and North Lebanon). The midterm evaluation highlights how the project’s activities met the first objective of empowering men and boys to engage with women and become allies and champions for gender equality and the prevention of VAWG. The training provided throughout the project enhanced the skills and knowledge of participants (CSO youth representatives, young media professionals, etc.) on gender and masculinities and turned them into advocates for the fight against VAWG in their communities. The project’s inclusive approach, involving both men and women, empowered direct beneficiaries as well as community members, especially men and boys. The results of the survey with community members showed that overall, there is a general disapproval of VAWG. Nonetheless, men still appear more likely to strongly agree with statements indicating that violence against women and girls is permissible, while women are more likely to disagree or have a neutral position. The survey shows that there has been a positive change in the awareness of and attitudes towards the permissibility of VAWG. This demonstrates that the Partners for Justice project was successful in transforming participants, both women and men, into allies for gender equality and VAWG prevention. |
| Final Evaluation – Towards A Gender Equitable Society projectThis report captures findings from the final evaluation study of the project “Toward a Gender-Equitable Society” implemented by Search and ABAAD. The project is funded by UK-Aid under the Jo Cox Memorial Fund with a duration of 24 months from July 2019 to June 2022 in Lebanon. The expected impact of the project is to “contribute to an enabling environment in which social norms around GBV will be shifted and access to safe and quality prevention and response services will be increased.” The project aims to achieve this impact with a two-pronged complementary approach (project outcome): 1) Increasing access to quality GBV prevention and response services, and 2) enhancing the capacity of Lebanese TV/film media to produce gender and GBV-sensitive media products. The evaluation found that Search’s component has made significant progress across the last twelve months in reaching its intended objectives and outcomes. Notable are the achievements made towards using media to raise awareness on issues related to gender and SGBV, both among media professionals and wider community members, the latter having viewed the produced gender-sensitive media products through dissemination in a film festival, on the social media campaign, and through focus group discussions in this evaluation. Fruitful discussions among community members of different background and from across Lebanon on the content of the media products indicated the potential for the further dissemination of products to contribute further to enabling an environment in which social norms around violence against women and girls will be further shifted. Entrenched social norms remain an obstacle, however, that will require synergies of media products and dissemination with further support for vulnerable women, further activities at the grassroots level, and greater advocacy for policy and legislative change at the national level. The full set of triangulated data indicates rather that the project contributed to significant achievements towards these outcomes, the most successful being the progress made in training media professionals to produce gender sensitive material and enhance their capacities to continue doing so in the long term. With regards to changing perceptions on gender and SGBV, some media professionals attributed changes in part to external factors such as societal and familial influence, but indicated that the main impetus and level of change had been driven by their involvement in the project. The project did lead to some unintended negative outcomes, mainly due to its competitive nature and the at times unclear communication of expectations across both partners and project participants. These shortcomings allowed for the identification of key lessons learned that will benefit future similar interventions and raise the impact of such interventions, found to be highly relevant and timely in Lebanon at the time of writing. |
| Outcome Harvesting “Reducing the Risk of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism in Lebanese Prisons” projectThis report analyses findings captured from the Outcome Harvesting evaluation of the project “Reducing the Risk of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism in Lebanese Prisons” implemented by Search in partnership with two local organisations, Restart Centre for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture (Restart) and Nusroto Al Anashid – Prison Fellowship Lebanon (Nusroto). The German funded project lasted from July 2019 to September 2021 and has an overall goal of “Reducing the risk of violent extremism in custodial and non-custodial settings”. This goal was shaped around three distinct specific objectives: 1) Strengthen capacities of detainees and prison staff to identify and use alternatives to violence; 2) Shift the attitude of community members to support the reintegration of former detainees; and, 3) Strengthen collaboration between key prison stakeholders to reduce the risk of recidivism among detainees. This evaluation has exclusively utilised the Outcome Harvesting methodology and was able to generate 33 outcomes. These outcomes were predominantly positive and disproportionately distributed across the intended vs. unintended spectrum where 67 percent of outcomes gleaned are unplanned. The vast majority of these outcomes suggest the project has been successful in making recognisable progress in the three cornerstone components portrayed in the Theory of Change and the three distinct objectives, although inequitably. As per the findings of this evaluation, the most stellar results were populated by the first Capacity Building Component. In contrast, the Community Attitudes Shifting component appears to be average in terms of scale because it has mostly created changes on an individual level rather than on a community level as desired. In conclusion, the analysis of this evaluation suggests that it is imperative to consider the collective success of the project as an essential step forward towards realising the ultimate goal of the project and as an essential entry point for future programming that leverages these successes and scales up the potential impact of interventions that ultimately leads to endured results. Evidence provided by this report suggests alternative programmatic modalities that appear to be necessary to deepening this success, such as Organisational Capacity Development, and playing a leading, coordinating role in the sector. |
| Everyone Gains: Making Governance More Inclusive and Participatory in Northern Lebanon “Diwan Project” Phase II – Final EvaluationThis report captures findings from the final evaluation of the project “Everyone Gains: Making Governance More Inclusive and Participatory in Northern Lebanon – Diwan Project Phase II” implemented by Search. The project was funded by Global Affairs Canada and implemented in Wadi Khaled – North Lebanon. The project aimed to ensure that governance in Wadi Khaled is inclusive by improving collaboration between local leaders and their constituents in addressing local needs, and by increasing participation and representation of marginalized groups in addressing local needs. The final evaluation confirmed the relevancy of the project to address the right issues at the right time, given its relevance to country-wide dynamics and momentum created by political uprising. The evaluation firmly established that the project’s soft component (capacity building) effectively provided opportunities for marginalized groups. Women, primarily, engaged with these opportunities, as did youth to a lesser extent. In fact, many project beneficiaries asserted Phase II broke several social barriers and allowed youth and women who lacked opportunities to gather for discussion a chance to come together and share their opinions. The evaluation’s survey results showed that 91 percent of project beneficiaries considered Phase II of the Diwan Project effective in contributing to increased representation of marginalized groups in addressing local needs. |
| ENDLINE STUDY – Fostering Social Stability through Strategic CommunicationsThis report captures findings from the final evaluation of the project “Fostering Social Stability through Strategic Communications” implemented by Search. The project was funded by CSSF and implemented from June 2019 to March 2021 in Lebanon. The project aimed to reduce tensions at a local level amongst and between host communities and refugees in six governorates in Lebanon. The final evaluation highlights the positive impacts that were observed at the level of the Dialogue Teams and Champions. The dialogue sessions helped to change the perspectives and erode stereotypes of participating members as well as having a positive impact on the participants immediate network (friends, family). The evaluation demonstrated that the skills and experience gained by the Champions and Dialogue Teams is sustainable. It is also evident that the relationships created within the Dialogue Teams have continued beyond the project itself, which is an indicator of the wider impact and sustainability of these sessions. Furthermore, the initiatives brought together people with different identities and demonstrated how they can work together and collectively benefit the community. |
| Evaluation Summary – Diwan: Everyone Gains – October 2019The DIWAN project was implemented by Search for Common Ground in Wadi Khaled between 2017 and 2019 with funding from the Global Affairs Canada. Diwan aimed at strengthening equitable and inclusive decision-making processes and ensuring more participatory and representative governance in the community. The project engaged with representatives from local authorities, youth, women and other marginalized groups to promote the principles of good governance through a series of activities, including capacity building, trust building, and collaborative activities. The project was found to be largely effective in reducing social tension, promoting inclusivity and representation in local governance, and improving the overall collaboration and trust between the citizens and the local authorities of Wadi Khaled through the newly created communication channels and trust-building activities that fostered the principles of good governance. 80% of community members surveyed confirmed that they are able to access the decision-makers in their communities. This was a 20% increase from the baseline – this increase was much more significant among women, youth and other marginalized/vulnerable groups (+43%). Diwan also contributed to a 20% increase of community members who agree that collaboration between local leaders and their constituents is necessary to facilitate change and to improve access to services. |
| Evaluation Summary – Peace Pioneers – Phase II – October 2019This Phase II of the Peace Pioneers program was implemented by Search Lebanon from July 2018 to June 2019, with support from the Embassy of Switzerland in Beirut. The project aimed to stimulate private sector engagement in peacebuilding with CSOs in Lebanon. Building on Phase I, this new phase engaged a larger pool of participants and focused on continued support to the development of partnership and support mechanisms between the private sector and CSOs that will, in the longer term, maximize peacebuilding efforts throughout the country. The project was effective in stimulating understanding, attitudes, and perceptions towards peacebuilding and creating space for dialogue between CSOs and the private sector. 90% of trainees interviewed indicated that trainings helped them see things differently while 80% indicated using learning outcomes in their daily lives. However, although some entities drew very close in collaborating with each other through the project, these collaborations did not flourish in actual bilateral partnerships. The success of this model requires deeper and more comprehensive understanding and therefore needs longer-term engagement for both parties to better understand each other’s mandates and ways of working which would result in identifying entry points of collaboration that could materialize in actual partnerships. |