Evaluation of RFSL Mobilising for Change: Leaving No One Behind 2021-2023 and 2018-2020 (call off)

LGBTI persons are subjected to human rights violations in all parts of the world, not least through criminalization, discrimination, violence and threats of violence. A general challenge faced by LGBTQI persons and organisations is access to resources, legal and other barriers to register and operate, hostility and marginalisation, which has led to lowered capacity among organisations, both in terms of organisational capacity and advocacy skills. This is coupled with the historical invisibility and silencing of LGBTQI voices in national and international fora, and the continued and active opposition and negation of the human rights of LGBTQI persons nationally and internationally. Advocacy skills are important to ensure that LGBTQI people can claim their rights at all levels. In addition to this, a well organised and strong LGBTQI movement is crucial in order to effectively work towards the equality and access to development needs of LGBTQI rights nationally, regionally and globally. Capacity development, advocacy and movement building within the area LGBTQI is at the core of the interventions to be evaluated.

RFSL’s “Mobilising for Change: Leaving no one behind” has been supported by Sida since 2018 from the Global Strategy on Democracy, Human Rights and Rule of Law 2018-2022. Sida supported the Mobilising for Change: Leaving no one behind 2018-2020 and is currently supporting Mobilising for Change: Phase II 2021-2023. The 2018-2020 programme was not evaluated and therefore it is included in this evaluation together with the ongoing programme.

1.2 Evaluation object: Intervention to be evaluated

The evaluation object is the Sida supported RFSL program “Mobilising for Change: Leaving No One Behind Phase 1 and 2. The evaluation will look at both the current program which runs 2021-2023 and the previous program 2018-2020.

The program 2018-2020 and 2021-2023 was/is structured around two program areas; Program area 1) "Recognition of human rights for LGBTIQ people" (advocacy) and Program area 2) "Stronger actors and movement building" (capacity strengthening of LGBTI activists and organisations)

The purpose or intended use of the evaluation was:

• Help Sida and RFSL to assess to what extent the objectives of the 2018-2020 program were achieved, and what worked well and less well.
• Help Sida and RFSL to assess progress of the ongoing intervention Mobilising for Change to learn from what works well and less well. The evaluation will be used to inform decisions on how the design of the project may be adjusted and improved in the new phase of the intervention.
• Based on insights from the two program periods, provide Sida and RFSL with an input to upcoming discussions concerning the preparation of a new phase of Mobilising for Change.

The primary intended users of the evaluation were RFSL and Sida (the Unit for Democracy and Human Rights/INTEM)

During the inception phase, the evaluator and the users agreed on who was responsible for keeping the various stakeholders informed about the evaluation.

The evaluation scope was limited to the 2018-2020 program period and 2021-2022 of the current program period 2021-2023.