by Dan Moxon and Ondrej Barta
This report outlines the results of the Democracy Reloading Impact Research, at the end of the fourth year of this research. This research is focused on the status of DEMO SNAC as of at the end of 2024 considering work from 2020 onwards. It should be noted this project was a direct follow-up from the previous ‘Democracy Reloaded’ project. Evaluation results are based on a mixed methods approach. Combining data supplied by NAs against evaluation indicators, surveys with participants, interviews with participants and social media metrics.
The impact research conducted in 2024 shows, that the DEMO SNAC initiatives strongly contribute to fulfilling its objectives namely:
- To provide different stakeholders working in municipalities (e.g., youth workers, municipal workers, trainers, consultants, researchers, NA staff youth workers, etc.) with access to relevant knowledge and information about youth participation in decision-making through the online toolkit, in order to increase their competences in designing, implementing, and evaluating youth participation in decision-making.
- To enable different stakeholders working in municipalities (e.g., youth workers, municipal workers, trainers, consultants, researchers, NA staff youth workers, etc.) to become more active in supporting youth participation in decision-making at municipal level, through training activities, promotion activities, and resources.
- To ensure different stakeholders working in municipalities (e.g., youth workers, municipal workers, trainers, consultants, researchers, NA staff youth workers, etc.) make optimal use of the Erasmus+ Youth and the EU Solidarity Corps programs in developing youth participation in decision-making through granted projects.
- To contribute to enhancing youth participation in decision-making and sustaining democracy on local, national and European levels.
- To contribute to building the capacities at National Agencies to achieve all of the abovementioned objectives.
International training course participants are often strongly able to use Democracy Reloading as a tool to improve their personal capacities in relation to youth participation. Specifically, Democracy Reloading activities are strong in enabling participants, such as municipality officers, to understand and map their local contexts in order to identify areas for development. Impacts on participants include the following domains:
- a deepening of knowledge of the role of municipalities in relation to youth participation;
- an increased understanding of the varying situation of municipalities across Europe in relation to youth participation;
- the ability to comparatively analyse participants' municipality in relation to others;
- increased ability to identify improvements needed in their municipality practices;
- and an ability to advocate and champion youth participation within a municipality.
Participants are able to apply these competences to make positive improvement to youth participation within their municipality for participants working in/with municipalities which are already supportive of youth participation. Specifically, the impact research shows that:
- 70% of survey respondents state the influence of Democracy Reloading Activities on local participation structures is high / rather high;
- 85% of respondents considered DEMO SNAC to be a positive influence on local training opportunities;
- over 80% of the respondents consider the influence DEMO SNAC initiatives development of new or updated local strategies to be high / rather high;
- over 90% of the respondents believe the DEMO SNAC initiatives had a positive influence on the involvement levels of young people in designing the local strategies, while over 80% of the respondents consider this positive influence to be high.
Democracy Reloading has a demonstrably high impact on the use of E+/ESC at local level to support youth participation. There has been a year-on-year rise in both the number of E+ applications submitted by DR stakeholders and the number granted. In 2024 this resulted in 77 E+ projects granted to Democracy Reloading Stakeholders (compared with 5 in 2020) and 19 ESC projects granted to Democracy Reloading Stakeholders (compared with 4 in 2020). DEMO SNAC is also a useful tool for NAs to sustain and in some case enhance relationships with municipalities through other results in the evaluation.
To further maximise this impact DEMO-SNAC might seek to
- Widen the reach of DEMO SNAC networks and better maintain ongoing engagement of participant outside of the international training courses – moving towards a widespread community of practice and active network, particularly through enhanced use of social media for engagement.
- Develop concrete, long-term collaboration with selected municipalities rather than repeated selection of participants based on E+ calls. This may maximise impact at local level within the selected municipalities.
- Create more tailored and relevant content to meet the needs of participants from diverse realities. (e.g., advanced level content, beginner level content etc).
If you are interested in reading the full report, you will find it here