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Batwa women in Uganda. Credit: MRG/Emma Eastwood

Enhancing Batwa Leadership in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda

This evaluation focused on the programme efficiency and effectiveness of the 2007-2010 project seeking to end gender-based discrimination and violence against women in Batwa minority communities. The work took place in Burundi, DRC, Rwanda and Uganda. The program had a dual focus of violence against women, and girl’s education. The evaluation found the project to be successful, and that violence against women was reduced in 100% of the Rwandan and Ugandan Batwa communities surveyed. The lessons echoed by NGOs (including MRG) and local authorities alike on autonomy for women are repeated throughout the countries. Speaking to this, the evaluator wrote that the programme overall has been efficient; that is, every activity has been completed to a reasonable quality, every stated indicator has been met, with some timescale slippages as might be expected, and within budget.”

Some recommendations for the betterment of the project were offered, beginning with increased importance given to partner assessment. There need to be changes to partner monitoring, and steps that have been taken into assessment should be reviewed annually to ensure that they are meeting MRG’s goals. Additionally, in environments of extreme marginalization and impoverishment, there must be creative approaches in ensuring appropriate service delivery. In the case of this programme, practical support could have been given to girls to go to school. Finally, it should make more use of its knowledge and end product by publishing and summarizing more reports, distributing them more widely amongst decision-makers and communities, and increasing impact through multiple launches.

Download the evaluation