Engaging the Youth in Digital Evidence-Based Advocacy
Levante has recently completed an end-line evaluation of a youth digital engagement project across Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zambia, Palestine and Bangladesh. The project sought to get the youth involved on a platform where they would be responsible for collecting, aggregating, analyzing, and disseminating information within the shortest period of time, to enable evidence-based decision-making at a local level. The project’s objectives included assessing the effectiveness and impact, both intended and unintended, of the project’s outcomes on changes in young people’s actions, ideas, and attitudes towards social accountability.
The evaluation team employed a mixed-methods approach using a variety of tools to conduct participatory research with young people from the countries in which the project was implemented. These tools included a desk review followed by quantitative surveys that were used to generate relevant statistics and qualitative surveys, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The evaluation was done in two phases with the initial phase involving the desk review, key informant interviews with project staff and youth champion surveys.
The second phase of the project involved youth champion surveys, community and government leader interviews, media outlet interviews and interviews with local implementation partners for the project. At the end of the data collection the team conducted a data validation workshop in order to guide recommendations, which were focused on the sustainability strategy of the project, the use of digital technologies and the involvement of young people as part of implementation strategies.
Due to the fact this was an innovative pilot project, assembled rapidly in response the unfolding pandemic, there was initially no Monitoring and Evaluation framework or clear project objectives – complicating the task for the Evaluation team. Levante created their own framework and research questions for the Evaluation, in collaboration with key stakeholders. This allowed the team to use their expertise in conducting research, more so with young people, to provide insights into aspects of the project that were not covered in the initial terms of reference.
Because the youth that participated in the project were from different countries, the team aptly used digital tools to conduct the research. Being a multi-country project also opened the research team up to the different definitions and expectations of what youth is as the surveys included participants of varied ages. It was clear from the interviews conducted that youth is defined differently in different contexts with age not being the only factor considered. The team had to be sensitive to different cultures and contexts, and through our exploration of this we learned lessons we can take forward in future youth-focused projects
The team also found it interesting that the project showed the most impact in Bangladesh where the implementation did not use social media as much as in other countries. The findings showed that Bangladesh instead relied more on local partner organizations in each region of the country to reach and work with the youth champions.
At the end of the project, the team provided an elaborate report documenting their findings under each item in the OECD-DAC criteria of evaluation with further attention being paid to aspects of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion, including people with disability. The team also provided recommendations on the project design and implementation, as well as future monitoring and evaluation.