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Global Advocacy Programme

This evaluation investigated a very ambitious programme of online and face-to-face training for minority rights advocates in 30 countries over three years.

The training was followed by support for small advocacy projects, lobbying and campaigning. As a result of the project over 300 students completed the online course, 90 per cent said that they had found it useful and 96 per cent of those interviewed by the evaluator said that they had been able to use what they had learned in their work and to benefit the community.

The evaluator wrote, ‘I have entitled this report Aiming high; clearing the bar. I am convinced that the project overall has been an efficient use of funds; that MRG’s unique niche in minority affairs has been fully employed, that activities have been completed to a high level of quality, and that creative mitigation strategies have been employed to deal with timescale slippages and technological challenges. There is no doubting the importance or scale of the issues faced by minorities.

‘As shown by the recent MRG report Land, livelihoods and identities: Inter-community conflicts in East Africa minorities often face economic perils such as landlessness and multiple discrimination due to their identity. The choice of the 36 project countries was almost universally accepted by informants; some suggesting that MRG were ‘ahead of the game’ in envisioning trends.

‘The project was truly global. Content, length of course and the level of tutor support got overwhelmingly positive approbation from student participants. The course directly guided its participants and students to impressive, concrete outcomes, despite political restrictions occasionally silencing activists for security reasons at public forums.’

One criticism the evaluator had of this project was that MRG may have been overambitious in what it set out to achieve, particularly in terms of having only three years to bring about changes in policy and legislation in country. He also made a number of other reccommendations concerning multi-country projects, identifying trainees and pitching training to the level that can be accessed by the most excluded communities.

Download the final report.

View a public version of the online course here.