Suggestions for Global development campaigning and education in Europe

This paper collects a range of suggestions emerged from the experience of EU DEAR Programme grantees, that can be relevant to DEAR project partners, useful to staff involved in designing and implementing projects.

It summarises outcomes of work done by representatives of nearly a 100 DEAR Programme-supported projects implemented between 2015 to 2020, drawing on a range of documents from DEAR Programme events and activities, providing suggestions and food for thought on aspects of DEAR project planning, implementation and evaluation.

Starting from the launch of project implementation, the paper offers guidance on how teams can re-familiarise and re-assess the project context and targets, re-plan various aspects of the project in order to achieve their objectives. 

Further down the implementation cycle, the paper offers tips on building, managing and being part of a project team, including setting up and maintaining finance and internal communication systems. It also provides ideas on working with ‘outsiders’ - in particular Change Agents, local communities and ‘sub-grantees’ - in order to make them into ‘insiders’.

The paper’s fourth section focuses on recommendations for DEAR project communications, both those provided by external experts as well as by other DEAR practitioners. The section also includes references to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on project communication.

This is followed by a closer look at the core ingredients of the ‘DEAR’ concept including ‘Awareness-raising’, ‘Global Learning’ or ‘Campaigning and advocacy’.

The next section is dedicated to social impact and provides guidance on learning from implementation and proving the project’s impact, clarifying results chains and other concepts, including recommendations for setting up a project monitoring system and using external evaluators in creating lasting results and outcomes.

The seventh, final section pertains to Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) in DEAR projects, including insights into project closure, celebrating project achievements, as well as reporting. 

The paper concludes with a list of references for further learning, more in-depth insights into all of the issues considered in the document.