Strengthening political landscape (SPL) in Bangladesh activity mid-term performance evaluation : final evaluation report

to conduct a mid-term performance evaluation of the Strengthening Political Landscape (SPL) project being implemented by Democracy International. The Evaluation Team (ET) conducted its fieldwork for this evaluation during February-March 2019, collecting data through an exhaustive document review, 50 key informant interviews and group interviews, 18 focus groups, and mini-surveys with 44 individuals. A key area of inquiry for the ET was to evaluate SPL’s progress toward its main objectives of advancing youth and women’s political participation and leadership; promoting constructive, tolerant cross-party engagement; and increasing participation in and the legitimacy of Bangladesh’s election process. 1) The ET found that youth and women seeking greater roles within their parties have significantly strengthened their skills and modestly improved their responsibilities but only marginally attained advancement to party leadership positions due to entrenched power structures. 2) Through its young leaders’ fellowships, women’s empowerment activities, and campaign for peaceful elections, party beneficiaries felt SPL had built several viable platforms for learning tolerance, building bridges or at least sitting down with opposing party members. However, much of this cross-party “infrastructure” and trust is now seen as damaged as a result of Bangladesh’s 2018 Parliamentary election. 3) Progress toward SPL’s third objective was undermined by the ruling Awami League’s heightened control of the 2018 election, which included the arrests of many opposition Bangladesh National Party candidates and officials, blocking of polling agents and observers from their assigned stations, and pre-election stuffing of ballot boxes.