Strengthening the Capacity of Civil Society to Contribute to Sustainable Governance in Liberia

This study is part of the 5-year project ‘Strengthening the Capacity of Civil Society to Contribute to Sustainable Governance in Liberia’ funded by the Swedish International Development Agency with the overall goal of strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations in Liberia of promoting a democratic culture, protecting human rights, and including citizens in decision-making processes.

The qualitative data collection noted the objectives were achieved over the course of the project. It effectively managed to increase the programmatic capacity of civil society organizations to engage with state actors on governance and development issues. The project’s sustainability has also been successful; since the end of the donor funding all of the organizations that participated in the project have been successful in attracting additional funds from other donors to continue their work.

The project was least effective in decentralizing government processes and security sector reforms. Recommendations to improve this included creating a badge with an identification number for police officers to carry in order to enhance accountability. Additionally, capacity building programs were recommended to be implemented for a minimum of three years in order to ensure gains are institutionalized by the organizations and secure the project’s sustainability.

This entry was posted in Africa, Evaluations, Resources and tagged capacity building, civil society organizations, Governance, government institutions, inclusion, Liberia Evaluations, security reform, Sierra Leone, state actors on December 13, 2017.

Final Evaluation – Jan 2017 – “Engaging Children and Youth as Partners in Preventing Violence against Children”

“Engaging Children and Youth as Partners in Preventing Violence against Children” was a regional project funded by the European Commission. It aimed at contributing to the eradication of all sorts of violence against children and youth in three border-sharing post-conflict countries of West Africa: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The external evaluation focused the effectiveness of the project and the quality of young people’s participation. It included a mixed methodology approach, with emphasis on qualitative methods. In each country, it included document review, surveys, semi-structured focus group discussions, and key informant interviews.

Youth were involved as researchers in the project and successfully conducted research which identified the worst forms of violence in the three countries and well as current approaches addressing them. Conclusions and recommendations were intended to be used broadly to influence country level programmatic and policy actions, and to mainstream findings at a societal level to enable communities to better prevent worst forms of violence. It was considered effective and useful but took place on a relatively smaller scale than planned. Unfortunately, was little to no evidence of changes of programmatic or policy actions in any of the countries, though there were evidence of project activities catalyzing significant community action projects to prevent violence against children.

A key success of the project was the active involvement of youth researchers (YRs) which ensured the implementation of activities, as well as a strong impact on the YRs themselves who grew personally and professionally. There was an adequate gender balance, and the participation was deeply meaningful to them and to the project. Many children and youth felt their voice was valued for the first time in their lives, and the project’s youth-led and participatory innovation drew attention from many stakeholders. The YRs provided credibility, commitment, and creativity that helped the project succeed despite many obstacles, including the worst Ebola Crisis in history. However, poor communication and coordination hindered the project’s success. Further, cases of vicarious trauma among the YRs was identified by the evaluation consultant who had a background in child phycology, and SFCG identified adequate actions to respond to this serious issue.

In terms of recommendations, the YRs should be well prepared emotionally and psychologically before going to the field, while in the field, and after returning from the field.

The potential risks of vicarious trauma should be assessed, identified, and addressed during the project design phase, and future proposals related to child and youth participation should be reviewed by qualified professionals with contextually relevant child and youth participation experience. Further, SFCG and primary stakeholders should increase the usage and distribution of project outputs in order to optimize the effectiveness of similar projects.​

Resources:

• Download the full evaluation.
• Read an evaluation summary in English.
• Read an evaluation summary in French.
• View s short presentation of the project.

This entry was posted in Africa, Evaluations, Resources and tagged Children & Youth, Children & Youth Evaluations, Guinea, Guinea Evaluations, Liberia, Liberia Evaluations, participation, protection, Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone Evaluations, violence against children and youth, youth-led research on April 27, 2017.

Final Evaluation – October 2016 – “Open for Business”: Promoting Equitable Land Rights Protection in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea

As a response to multinational corporations’ large-scale land acquisitions in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Search for Common Ground (Search) initiated this project with the purpose of addressing land dispossessions which have resulted in local people losing access to land, which directly sustains their livelihoods and food security. In collaboration with national partners, Search aimed to reduce the potential for land rights conflicts by enhancing the capacity of civil society, state actors and investing companies to promote equitable land rights. The project also aimed to increase popular understanding of land rights in communities affected by corporate land concessions. The evaluation was carried out using quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, including a documentary review and a field study across the three countries. Through this was not a cross-experimental evaluation, 360 women and men took part in treatment (participants) and comparison (non-participants) groups in each country, which isolated attitudinal, behavioral and perception changes about land rights and conflict resolution.

The main stakeholders of the project were directly exposed to the national laws pertaining to land rights in their countries. The Land Management Committees created in Sierra Leone and Liberia were sensitized on the legal procedures to follow to protect their members’ rights. In Guinea, Concertation platforms were created to encourage dialogue around large scale land transfer between stakeholders, mining companies and government leaders. Additionally, as a result of the project’s activities, popular understanding of land rights increased by 59 percentage points. Overall, the project had very positive results raising awareness about land rights and the consequences of leasing land to foreign investors. However, the timeframe for the project implementation was too short to strengthen results, and could benefit from an extension to ensure that the three countries are better equipped to negotiate land acquisitions with large financial powers.

This entry was posted in Africa, Reports, Resources and tagged Guinea, Guinea Evaluations, land rights, Liberia, Liberia Evaluations, Mining, Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone Evaluations on April 4, 2017.

Strengthening the Capacity of Civil Society to Promote Sustainable Governance in Liberia

Strengthening the Capacity of Civil Society to Promote Sustainable Governance in Liberia is a 3 year project with funding from the Swedish International Development Agency. Liberia continues to face considerable challenges such as corruption, an overly centralized political authority, social divisions, and high youth unemployment. Civil society organizations (CSO) and community-based organizations (CBO), which have a critical role in monitoring the performance of the government, often have weak organizational and leadership capacity, with little cooperation among them.The project aims to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations in Liberia to contribute to a sustained democratic culture that protects human rights and promotes citizens participation in decision-making processes. Implementing partners include three Liberian CSOs and three CBOs active in Bong, Bassa and Nimba districts. The mid-term evaluation report demonstrates that so far the project has achieved an overall increase of all partners’ institutional capacities, local engagement capacities, and the national partners’ (NP) capacities to network. However, the evolution of capacities depend on greater dedication to their improvement and inclusion of the capacity as part of the benchmark and the implementation plan and budget. This evaluation is an internal-external evaluation.

This entry was posted in Africa, Evaluations, Resources and tagged Africa, Democracy and Governance, Liberia, Liberia Evaluations on June 2, 2015.

The Team Tabella FC: Final Outreach Report

This is the final report based on evaluation of The Team (Children and Youth) project implemented by Search for Common Ground/Talking Drum Studio-Liberia. This report covers outreach activities beginning March 2011 for the mobile screening of The Team: Tabella FC, a television project funded with grant from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), USAID, the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and the Norwegian government.

After a successful screening for 10 weeks on a number of TV stations in Monrovia, it became expedient to take the film outside to the greater society through mobile screening. This became possible with funding from the Children and Youth project of Search for Common Ground, Washington DC. The screening began in April of 2011 with a projection for completion at the end of June, 2011. But due to some unforeseen circumstances and the slow transfer of funds, the activities had to be extended to March, 2012. Unfortunately, funding for the completion of the project ended when the first set of outreach activities had only begun in 2011. As a result, some of the activities specified in the project could not be implemented.

This report covers outreach activities carried out under the C&Y Grant – the screening of these films in communities around Liberia – with the involvement of youth and children as part of the activities and part of discussions and feedback sessions.

This entry was posted in Africa, Evaluations, Resources and tagged Liberia Evaluations on April 1, 2012.

Liberia National Action Plan Survey Results

An outcome of the Internatioanl Colloquium on Women’s Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace and Security held in Monrovia in March 2009 was the inclusion of women in post-conflict reconstruction into the Liberian National Action Plan (LNAP). The purpose of this survey at hand was to identify the gaps in rural Liberians’ perceptions and knowledge of the recent inclusion of this component into the LNAP. The results have been used by both Ministry of Gender and Development and donor agencies alike. The emphasis of which is two-fold: (1) to receive feedback on the Liberian National Action Plan to include women in post-conflict reconstruction, and (2) to assess people’s feelings about the state of women’s peace and security in rural communities. After surveying a sample of 304 individuals in six counties throughout Liberia, the results found that while there was prevalent knowledge of the International Colloquium, there were significant gaps in understanding related to the LNAP and work of the Ministry of Gender and Development.

This entry was posted in Africa, Evaluations, Resources and tagged Liberia Evaluations on August 1, 2009.

Draft Consolidated Report: Community Radio and Development in Sierra Leone and Liberia

The purpose of this evaluation was to analyze trends across four community radio stations:

• 1. Radio Kergheamahn in Ganta, Nimba County, Liberia;
• 2. Radio Life in Zorzor, Lofa County, Liberia;
• 3. Radio Wanjei in Pujehun District, Sierra Leone; and
• 4. Radio Kolenten in Kambia District, Sierra Leone

More specifically, evaluation was carried out with the intent of determining how community radio can be better positioned to drive development and support peaceful transformation of conflict in the communities they’re broadcasting to. In addition to analysis of the relationship between radio and development, information on radio programming, effectiveness of radio stations’ day-to-day operations, and audience feedback to programming was considered in assessing community radio stations’ capacity and impact. Ultimately, the findings of the evaluation highlight that sensitization and awareness programs have shown a demonstrable impact on attitudes in behaviors among listeners, but that focus should be placed on inclusiveness of traditionally underrepresented groups including youth and women.

• Read the Evaluation
• Read the Key Findings

This entry was posted in Africa, Evaluations, Resources and tagged Liberia Evaluations, Sierra Leone Evaluations on July 1, 2009.