Evaluation of Access to Justice and Promotion of Constitutional Rights Programme (AJPCR) 2016 - South Africa

Description:
The Inception Report made provision for 9 key informant interviews, a total of 18 key informant interviews were conducted. As planned twelve focus group interviews were conducted. Over 100 documents were studied.
Abstract:
The Democracy Governance and Service Delivery research programme of the HSRC conducted an evaluation of the Access to Justice and the Promotion of Constitutional Rights (AJPCR) Programme, which was implemented from 2009 to 2014 with financial support from the European Union. The AJPCR, aimed to strengthen democracy by improving access to justice and promoting constitutional rights in South Africa, involving Civil Society Organisations at national and sub-national level. The involved stakeholders to make an independent assessment of the performance of the Programme; identify key lessons learned; identify the value add of the Programme; identify challenges; propose practical recommendations.

The methodology of the AJPCR evaluation included: a review of Programme documents; key informant interviews; focus group discussions; and analysis of fieldwork. The assessment included the physical and policy environment and how it has evolved over time.

The analysis included the logic and completeness of the programme planning and design process. Several steps were undertaken that logically set out the justification for Budget Support and the policy area and programme to be supported, as well as design, objectives, and other key modalities of the Programme. A study was made of the appropriateness of implementation strategies, Project results contributed to the Programme purpose of strengthening democracy by improving access to justice, increasing awareness of constitutional rights and enhancing participatory democracy for vulnerable and marginalised communities.

Feedback from beneficiaries, both to the HSRC and other external evaluators, indicate a profoundly positive immediate outcome for many community beneficiaries who received crucial services, training and empowerment as a result of the project activities supported by FHR grants under the programme. FHR correctly identified support to the advice office sector as a crucial mechanism for facilitating access to justice for the most vulnerable and marginalised communities.

Efficiency can be identified in the Programme’s flexible funding modality; its use of resources such as time, information, relationships and expertise; its matrix of interlinked and complementary activities; its allocation of responsibilities and its governance structures and processes; as well as in its grant-making, –supervision and –reporting systems and techniques.

The Programme has impacted on various processes in the governance sector. The FHR engaged in a vast number of project activities over the duration of the Programme and met or exceeded all numerical targets, assuming then that the project activities would have contributed to Programme purposes. The FHR has funded a number of organisations and enabled them to carry out their intended tasks. Ample evidence from the research highlights that a significant number of projects were implemented by community-based organisations in rural and disadvantaged areas working with vulnerable and marginalised groups.