7 YOUTH POLICY COOPERATION BETWEEN
Turkey and Sweden 2007–2010
COMPLETION REPORT
Youth Policy Cooperation between Turkey and Sweden COMPLETION REPORT 2007-2010 Dnr. 132-282/07
Lotta Jarvenius Rรถssner
Content 1
Executive summary ............................................................... 5
2
Project components and its activities ........................................ 6 2.1 Project design ................................................................................ 6 2.2 Partners in Sweden ......................................................................... 7 2.3 Partners in Turkey .......................................................................... 7 2.4 Defined concepts in the youth field .................................................... 8 2.4.1 Relation to indicators....................................................................... 8 2.5 Knowledge of living conditions .......................................................... 8 2.5.1 Relation to indicators....................................................................... 9 2.6 Establish spaces/platforms/networks in the youth field ....................... 10 2.6.1 Relation to indicators..................................................................... 11 2.7 Promotion of best practices for youth employment............................. 12 2.7.1 Relation to indicators..................................................................... 13 2.8 Awareness of provided social services and rights for young people ....... 13 2.8.1 Relation to indicators..................................................................... 14
3
Analysis in relation to project aims ......................................... 15 3.1 Learning outcomes for the Swedish partner ...................................... 15 3.2 Learning outcomes for the Turkish partner ....................................... 16 3.3 Learning outcomes and risk assessment ........................................... 16 3.3.1 Language barriers ......................................................................... 17 3.3.2 Time schedule .............................................................................. 17 3.4 Feasibility-relevance-sustainability .................................................. 18
4
Ideas for the future ............................................................. 19
5
Organisation and administration ............................................ 20 5.1 Developments in Turkey ................................................................ 20 5.2 Developments in Sweden ............................................................... 20
6
Budget follow up and cost efficiency ....................................... 21 6.1 Financial changes in relation to Inception report ................................ 21 6.2 Project co-funding and cost efficiency .............................................. 22 6.3 Auditing report ............................................................................. 22
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1
Executive summary
To facilitate Turkey’s enlargement process to European Union membership negotiations, the Swedish government, through Sida, had set aside funds to support reform in Turkey and increase international exchange, not least on the civil society level. Representatives from the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs therefore approached the counterparts in Turkey, Youth Services Department (YSD), during a pre-study in 2006. A project was then formulated to carry out development of youth policies within the two countries. The content and methodological framework was concretely formulated between the partners, involving many actors during a LFA (Logical Framework Approach) workshop held in November 2007, where two overarching aims were identified for the project to work with development of youth policy in Sweden and Turkey. Hence, the project “Youth Policy Cooperation between Turkey and Sweden” had the following main aims: • To promote the recognition of young people’s potential and to learn about young people’s needs. • To promote active participation by youth in society. The cooperation partners of the project are The Youth Services Department (YSD) at The General Directorate of Youth and Sports in Turkey and The Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs. The partners have then involved many actors at different levels and areas to implement different project parts within the framework of cooperation. Five concrete areas of cooperation were decided upon during the LFA-workshop: 1. Knowledge and acceptance of defined concepts in youth policy. 2. Knowledge about young people’s living conditions in pilot municipalities. 3. Establish spaces/platforms/networks for persons active in youth field. 4. Promotion of best practises for youth employment. 5. Awareness of provided social services and rights for young people. The actual project activities started in April 2008 and activities have continued throughout 2009. The project was evaluated in the spring of 2010. Each of these components of the project contained several activities, which numbers to 21 in total, after contractual changes, more or less equally distributed between Sweden and Turkey as venue place. Meetings, workshops, conferences, surveys, websites and compendia are different concrete outputs from this cooperation project. These different activities attracted 545 participants. In practice, 270 unique individuals have participated in the project. Exposés of the two countries youth policies have been produced and different meanings of “youth” have been discussed. Surveys to know more about young people’s needs in Sweden and Turkey has increased knowledge in local municipalities and provinces. Best practices within the field of youth employment has been shared and disseminated among participants. Young people have been involved in dialogues with decision makers. All in all, the project has been successful, which has also been externally evaluated. Knowledge has increased and many actors in Sweden and Turkey continue their cooperation also after the end of this institutional cooperation project.
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2
Project components and its activities
The project between the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs and Youth Services Department (YSD) main aims were: • To promote the recognition of young people’s potential and to learn about young people’s needs. • To promote active participation by youth in society.
2.1
Project design
Out of the main aims, five concrete areas of cooperation were decided upon during the LFA-workshop. These broke down the overarching aims to a more concrete level: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Knowledge and acceptance of defined concepts in youth policy. Knowledge about young peoples’ living conditions in pilot municipalities. Establish spaces/platforms/networks for persons active in youth field. Promotion of best practises for youth employment. Awareness of provided social services and rights for young people.
These themes were agreed to be of most relevance and allow for mutual learning processes in the cooperation project between the partners. They are also seen as levers between each other to have an outreaching effect. They are all relevant in the enlargement process for Turkey, as the themes are tackled in the White paper on Youth published by the European Commission in 2001, or within the Youth Pact, annexed to the Lisbon strategy in 2005 to facilitate youth entry on the labour market. Another main aspect of this design was that they would allow for a wide range of actors to collaborate together in parts or the whole project together. 1. Knowledge and acceptance of defined concepts in youth policy
• Activity 1 ‐ Study Visit SE • Activity 2 ‐ Study Visit TR • Activity 3 ‐ Compendium Defined concepts of youth
2. Knowledge about young peoples’ living conditions in pilot municipalities
• • • •
Activity 4 ‐ Workshop Living conditions/expectations Activity 5 ‐ Local practice/LUPP surveys Activity 6 ‐ Follow up meeting & compendium of process Activity 19 ‐ Pilot project with municipalities (initially within part 5)
3. Establish spaces/platforms/ networks for persons active in youth field
• • • • •
Activity 7 ‐ Prep meeting TR Activity 8 ‐ Prep. meeting SE Activity 9 ‐ Closing conference Activity 10 ‐ Compendium from Closing conference Activity 11 and 21 ‐ Webpages & promotion/Internet training
4. Promotion of best practises for youth employment
• • • •
Activity 12 ‐ General workshop Youth employment Activity 13 ‐ Workshop Schools/enterprises Activity 14 ‐ Workshop unemployed/disabled youth Activity 15 ‐ Compendium report on youth employment
5. Awareness of provided social services and rights for young people
• • • • •
Activity 16 ‐ SE national workshop on rights Activity 17 ‐ TR national workshop om rights Activity 18 ‐ Workshop decision makers/young people on rights (Activity 19 ‐ Pilot project with municipalities ‐ moved to part 2) Activity 20 ‐ Contact Making Seminar on youth rights
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For the further reporting, each area of the project will be summarised, with the concrete activities within each area, its number of participants and its impact in the overall project. This report could also be read together with the external evaluator’s impact report on the three-year project, Youth policy cooperation between Turkey and Sweden – External evaluation, finalised in April 2010. The two reports are complementary to each other.
2.2
Partners in Sweden
One of the driving forces for the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs to enter this cooperation was the possibility to explore how national and local youth policies could evolve in an international context, and how to find synergies between the two. Therefore four municipalities in Sweden were strategically identified, covering geographical, ruralurban and thematic profiles fit for the project, who then would participate although in different parts of the project. The municipalities were Kristinehamn, Nacka, Kiruna and Sundsvall. A development agreement with the municipalities was formed, and it was made clear that the project should have impact on their local development plans on youth issues. Concretely, representatives from the different municipalities included civil servants, local politicians, and youth representatives in local youth forums in a mix suitable for each activity. Each municipality was involved in three different parts as follows: Youth concepts: Nacka and Kristinehamn, Youth employment: Kristinehamn and Kiruna, Youth rights: Kiruna and Sundsvall, Knowledge of Youth: Nacka and Sundsvall, Networks/platforms: Nacka, Kristinehamn, Sundsvall and Kiruna. In addition to these municipalities, best practices within youth employment, NGOs at national and local level, national authorities and decision makers from national level (national parliamentarians), researchers and journalists have participated in this project. From the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs point of view, the range of stakeholders involved in this project has been wider than is usually seen in other projects aiming at developing youth policy at local level. Furthermore, all these actors had a counterpart on the Turkish side, bringing in the international perspective in developing the project. Initially planned was a twinning concept with Turkish municipalities. However, this was not realised as planned as youth issues are dealt at provincial level and not local level in Turkey. Furthermore language barriers made a closer twinning approach more difficult than anticipated thus the solution was a more global approach on sharing of experiences among all partners involved, rather than only in twinning partnerships.
2.3
Partners in Turkey
As it was important for YSD to share experiences in implementing national youth policies several municipalities were invited to take part in the different components of the project. Eventually Turkey was represented by four local municipalities: ZonguldakKilimli, Ankara-Beypazari, Ankara- Yenimahalle and Istanbul-Sisli. One mayor, one deputy mayor, one elected head of a neighbourhood executive officer of a district, one social worker, civil servants, youth trainers and members of city councils/local politicians participated in different activities. Local municipalities involved in different components were as the following: Youth concepts: Ankara-Beypazari, Youth employment: AnkaraBeypazari and Zonguldak-Kilimli, Youth rights: Ankara- Yenimahalle and Istanbul-Sisli.
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2.4
Defined concepts in the youth field
The interest of cooperation in this area was to provide a start up platform for the partners to cooperate. When initiating cooperation on the youth field, the participants at the LFAworkshop felt that it was important to clarify what “youth” means in the two countries. What are we talking about, and from there how does a youth policy look like or potentially look like in the two countries. These considerations were concretised to three different activities as follows, including dates and number of participants: Activity 1 – Study Visit in Sweden, 7–11 April 2008 Stockholm, TR: 16, SE: 15. Activity 2 – Study Visit in Turkey, 12–17 May 2008 Ankara, TR: 11, SE: 11. Activity 3 – Production compendium Introduction to Youth Policy – Swedish and Turkish perspectives. TR: 600 copies, ENG: 200 copies. Disseminated in Turkey to all 81 provinces, libraries, universities, NGOs in the sector and related institutions. Disseminated in Sweden to all participants, and through downloads at websites. YSD’s international partners have also received English copies of the documents. 2.4.1
Relation to indicators
The understanding of and application of defined concepts in the youth field was the indicator of this project component. This was measured through survey results at two different occasions. However, despite great efforts a low answering frequency made the results difficult to interpret. On the one hand the answers had been more elaborated during the project, but on the other hand, the low answering rate makes this indicator difficult to measure given the method chosen. Another difficulty was that the initial idea was to keep the same participants along the way during the project, hence measuring a growth in knowledge among participants on youth policy. This has partly succeeded, but as the compendium was finalised at a later stage than initially planned, it did not form a base for knowledge during the entire project as initially envisaged. However, the texts form a good overview of the concept of youth policy in both countries and its potential uses and it has been of value to cooperate with external researchers and to put in writing what is meant with youth policy and the term youth in both the countries.
2.5
Knowledge of living conditions
The project component Knowledge of living conditions was one of the identified areas of cooperation within the LFA-workshop, mainly from the Turkish side. One of the fundaments of the European youth policy outlined in the White paper on Youth from 2001 was to have knowledge of youth, hence forming a knowledge-based youth policy based on young person’s needs and situation. This part of the project was formed in different phases: Discussion on importance of collecting information about young people’s views, presentation of a method for knowledge gathering, carrying out a survey including compiling the result, analysis of results and discussions on how to follow it up, implementation at local/regional level, and finally presenting the outcomes within the
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project. This project component has been very appreciated by the participants and it has been used as a tool for discussions regarding the development of local and national youth policies. The Turkish partners made a strategic choice to encourage involvement of many provinces, 17 of them, more than initially planned, which has been one of the success factors of the entire project. This has also made an impact on regional level in Turkey and been an eye-opener for provincial directors and other decision makers and implementers of youth policies and activities on the uses of inventorying young people’s wishes and needs and adapt activities accordingly. The different parts of the project were set up as follows: Activity 4 – Workshop in Turkey, 15–19 September 2008, Nevsehir, TR: 24, SE: 13. Activity 5 – Local practice, Oct–Nov 2008, TR: 17 provinces, SE: 2 municipalities. Activity 6 – Follow-up meeting in Sweden, 1–5 December 2008, Arlanda, TR 16, SE.16. Activity 19 – Awareness of provided social services and rights for young people? 10-11 June 2009, Ankara, TR: 37. Within this part of the project, texts have been compiled about how to use surveys as a method for knowledge based youth policies. In total 200 English and 600 Turkish copies were printed of You get what you ask for – Using surveys to learn about young people. It was disseminated in Turkey to municipalities, provinces, libraries, universities, NGOs in the sector and related institutions. YSD’s international partners have also received English copies of the documents. Dissemination in Sweden has been through participants and via website downloads. The compendium has been appreciated with its hands-on approach in facilitating surveys as a method for gathering knowledge and our estimate is that this output will have a lasting impact for the future in terms of further ameliorate youth policies in the two countries. 2.5.1
Relation to indicators
The indicator for the second project component is the implementation of surveys in Sweden and Turkey and the presentation of the results. Local action plans have been made and followed up both in Sweden and Turkey. In general, the respondents that the external evaluator interviewed are very positive with the process and the findings. Many Turkish province directors have seen the use of using a methodology and approach and for 2010, outside the scope of this cooperation project, several provinces are planning for a follow up survey, this time with a more local touch to the questions. This is a concrete spin-off effect of the project. On the Swedish side, both municipalities involved state that it has been of good use to take part in this project as it frames in and places more importance to the results and follow up achieved. The local municipalities have placed more importance to the process, and the municipalities’ responsible politicians have also been highly involved in the process. Difficulties encountered were among others the timing, and one of the municipalities felt that they would have needed more skills themselves when analysing data from the surveys – both municipalities feel there are more materials to take out and use from the surveys conducted.
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2.6
Establish spaces/platforms/networks in the youth field
The third project component aimed to promote networking on the youth arena, especially in Turkey. More concretely, it equalled to a webpage, training for youth to promote information directed to youth on the Internet, as well as arranging the final conference in Istanbul in December 2009. Activity 7 – Preparation meeting in Sweden, 24 April 2009, Stockholm TR: 1, SE: 3. Activity 8 – Preparation meeting in Turkey, 29/9– 2/10 2009 Ankara. TR 4, SE: 4. Also within Activity 8, as a preparation for the closing conference, the project leader teams met with all the Swedish workshop leaders (24/9) and a number of Turkish workshop leaders (2/10) to ensure best preparations and choice of methodologies for the flow of the conference. Activity 9 – Final conference, Istanbul 7–9 December 2009. TR: 57, SE: 55, total 112 participants. The main part of the conference put focus on youth employment in both countries, but equal parts of social services for young people, knowledge about young persons and youth policy as such had its place in the programme. Being a final conference, the main idea was to share experiences gained and knowledge from the different project components. All the workshops were run by people who have taken part in the project within different components. This includes representatives from municipalities, regions, youth NGOs, umbrella organisations, researchers, parliamentarians and other actors that have been involved in the project. Furthermore, photo exhibitions and films from the previous activities were on display. Also, a small part of the programme was devoted to provide space to discuss future cooperation projects among actors. To further enhance networking aspects of bringing together actors within the youth field, relevant key note speakers were identified – which put youth policy higher on the agenda among those present. Responsible national politicians and prominent European actors were present at the event. Key note speakers were: • Mr Faruk Nafız Özak, the Turkish State Minister, responsible for Youth and Sports, • Mr Christer Hallerby, Swedish State Secretary from the Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality, • Mr Jan Truszczynski, Director General for DG Education and Culture, European Commission, and • Mr Ralf-René Weingärtner, Director of Youth and Sport, Council of Europe. Participants included national, regional and local parliamentarians, researchers, journalists, young persons, representatives of youth organisations, civil servants at different levels and other stake holders. In addition to participation from those previously involved in the project, the conference had visitors from the personnel based at the Swedish embassy employed by Sida, Turkish international cooperation partners from Germany (IJAB and German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth Germany), the consul and staff from the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, representatives from the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey, as well as the lead author and the coordinator of the 2008 National Human Development Report on “Youth in Turkey” produced by the United Nations Development Programme.
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Activity 10 – Documentation of final conference. Two journalists, one from each country, documented the final conference, put together in a compendium – printed in Turkey for dissemination (600 TR, 200 ENG), and web-based downloadable version in Sweden. Furthermore, all reference materials from the conference can be found at the project website www.ungenc.net. Activity 11 – Establishment of the webpage . This has mostly been used to store information and upload project documents, including presentations and reports from the researchers and writers who have been involved in the project. Also information about European, Swedish and Turkish youth policy is found there. Initially the website was supposed to be a networking place on youth issues in Turkey; however the Turkish partners had already developed such a website. Avoiding duplicates, this site was turned into a project website. Interactive methods developed such as forum discussions regrettably never were used, due to more language barriers than initially identified in the project both on Swedish and Turkish side. English was planned to be the joint communication language in the project. This turned out to be a hindrance for most participants to use the interactive parts of the website. Activity 21 (within activity 11) – Training www.ungenc.net, 19–22 March 2009, Ankara, TR: 32. 2.6.1 Relation to indicators This component had in hindsight not very suitable indicators to measure the extent of networking in the field of youth. However, indicators were deemed to measure the number of hits on the above mentioned web pages, analyse the developments of networking in the youth field and compare the number of Swedish-Turkish projects in the EU Youth in Action programme between 2007 and 2009. The aim of the webpages was for professionals working with young persons to have a platform to meet, and a secondary target group was young persons’ themselves. As far as the statistics have shown, the hits of the websites are the following: • www.gsgp.org.tr has 6 250 subscribers, 180–190 people visit the page (daily average) • www.ungenc.net has 11 760 subscribers, 240–250 people visit the page (daily average) The Youth in Action programme statistics show that for the entire period (2007–2009) a total of 226 applications were submitted to the Swedish or the Turkish National Agency, which had at least one Swedish and one Turkish partner involved – however there could be more partner countries involved than that in the project. 87 projects were approved out of those that had applied. Applications from year to year 2007-2008-2009 has increased with 63-80-83 applications. However, when looking at approved projects it is not as easy to interpret; approved projects have taken place 28-36-23 projects. The cooperation project has not reached the intended target of doubling our granted projects, however an increase of 1/3 more projects submitted have taken place during the period. It is mainly on the Turkish side that the increase has taken place. Noteworthy however is that also in 2010 several projects which has originated from this cooperation has been submitted and granted within the Youth in Action programme in the two countries.
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Another element in terms of networking in the youth field, when reviewing the project at large, is that we have reached a truly diverse range of cooperation partners at local, regional, national and international levels. Different actors, decision makers on all levels, national authorities, municipalities, regions, youth centres, civil servants, NGOs, youth councils, young persons, researchers, journalists etc have been involved. YSD and the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs together with the external evaluator have identified this as a truly unique feature of the project working with such a large and diverse range of stakeholders, in both countries. This in itself shows the essence of working on youth policy issues, which takes transversal approaches. Also in the partners internal evaluation session carried out in February 2010, it was shown that many new links within the field has been established, and in particular between the main partner promoters, the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs and YSD, trust has brought a deeper understanding for working methods and cultures within the youth field among the partners. This will facilitate potential new cooperation projects for the future. The cooperation with the National Agency of Youth in Action in Turkey never reached the proximity to the project as initially planned, whereas Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs is also acting as the National Agency of Youth in Action. Nevertheless, Youth in Action both in Sweden and Turkey co-funded a number of activities, as agreed beforehand, and representatives from the Turkish National Agency were present at the beginning in the LFA-workshops as well as at closing conference events.
2.7
Promotion of best practices for youth employment
The fourth project component aimed to exchange information and stimulate new ideas for how to counter youth unemployment. Many different aspects of youth employment have been discussed; it varies from the societal structure of employment issues to the approach towards and handling of unemployed youth. Promoting successful methods and sharing of experiences have been the focus during the design of this project component, which included the following concrete activities: Activity 12 – Workshop on youth unemployment 10–14 Nov 2008 Ankara, TR: 20, SE:13. Activity 13 – Workshop on cooperation between schools and enterprises to counter youth unemployment. 2-6 March 2009, Ankara, TR: 14, SE: 14. Activity 14 – Workshop on unemployment and disabled youth, 20–24 April 2009, Kristinehamn. TR: 14, SE: 14. Activity 15 – Compendium: Possibilities and opportunities – Best practices for young people on the labour market from Turkey and Sweden. 200 English and 600 Turkish copies were printed and disseminated further to all 81 Turkish provinces, libraries, universities, NGOs in the sector and related institutions.
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2.7.1
Relation to indicators
The indicator for this component is the follow up of methods and models presented by the participants. A number of such models and practices were presented during the different activities. When looking at outcomes, sharing has been focused on best practices and successful methods rather than models that would be transferred directly between the countries. Here the design of the indicators was not well matched with the intention of the project, focusing on sharing of best practices. However, cooperation has started among different actors both within the countries themselves to get further maximum impact of best practises but also new projects have been formed between the countries to further enhance the exchange of best practices. Turkey has highlighted additional career paths than only university through internships and such likes. Several participants that have had disabilities have been strengthened in their self-esteem and possibility to act within their respective national system as a learning result from this project. Models on getting business closer to schools have been of particular importance from the Swedish partners to continue to develop. Many of the “best practice-examples” involved in the project have seen a rise of interest in their national and local community for their activities and methods used to enhance youth employment. This area of cooperation was also of mutual interest to find further cooperation for the future between the project partners in Sweden and Turkey.
2.8
Awareness of provided social services and rights for young people
The fifth project component Awareness of provided social services and rights for young people focused on dialogue between youth and decision makers and on comparisons of the Swedish and the Turkish context. Five activities were designed to reach the overarching aim, as follows: Activity 16 – National workshop on rights, SE, 26–27 March 2009, Stockholm, SE: 16 Activity 17 – National workshop on rights, TR, 2–3 April 2009, Ankara, TR: 16. Activity 18 – Workshop with decision makers, 4–8 May 2009, Istanbul. TR: 10, SE: 10. (Activity 19 – Reported previously under Knowledge of living conditions) Activity 20 – Contact making seminar, 11–15 March 2009, Stockholm, TR: 10, SE. 10. In addition, a compendium Strengthen the rights of young people! – Summaries from three seminars on the theme Awareness of provided social services and rights for young people within the project Youth Policy Cooperation between Turkey and Sweden was produced. In total 200 English and 600 Turkish copies were printed and disseminated further to all Turkish provinces, libraries, universities, NGOs in the sector and related institutions.
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2.8.1
Relation to indicators
The indicator in the fifth project component is the level of knowledge and awareness of social services and rights among the participants of the project. This was to be measured in the same way as project component number one, i.e. the same survey will be filled out by the participants at two different occasions. Here we had difficulties with a large dropout rate from the Turkish side especially and the questionnaires were not really a good method for measuring the impact. However, we can see that the collaboration with NGOs has increased in Turkey. For instance, it was the first time ever that representatives from one of the main youth organisations in Turkey (GSM) were in the same panel discussion as representatives for the Youth Services Department at the General Directorate of Youth and Sports. Furthermore – out of context from this project, the prime minister in Turkey has called for a review and highlighting youth issues to be separated from Sports. If this will be the case, more attention and focus on youth issues would most likely be the consequence. In this process youth NGOs have been consulted in hearings which are a new approach for the current youth minister, taking office in May 2009. The second largest political party in the Turkish parliament has contacted YSD as a result from this project to learn more about youth issues, young people’s living conditions etc. The aim would be to incorporate in the political party plan some chapters/sections that see young people as a potential and resource in society. Although this may not be the predefined indicators for this project, this serves as examples of the awareness and structures to be changed to see young people as an increased resource society at large. Swedish NGOs and one of the parliamentarians in the Swedish government have lobbied to get the Convention on the Rights of the Child rectified into law, and the parliamentarians from Sweden and Turkey have planned to have a joint seminar on the issue in Sweden during the coming months.
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3
Analysis in relation to project aims
The overarching aims of the project were defined as: • To promote the recognition of young people’s potential and to learn about young people’s needs. • To promote active participation by youth in society. To measure these aims the project partners identified some indicators initially at the LFAworkshop, but when looking back these indicators have not really been best adapted to the activities as such and they provide only a part of the picture that has been the outcomes of the project. An external consultant, SPM Consultants was assigned with the monitoring and evaluation task of the project and the full report from this consultant can be read in the report Youth policy cooperation between Turkey and Sweden – External evaluation. When looking at all the activities within this project, 545 participants have participated. Most of them have taken part in more than one of the 20 activities in the project, and the 545 persons attending equals to 270 unique persons, 104 Swedes and 166 Turks. The partners in the project feel that the outreaching and potential multiplying effect was good. A unique feature of this project was the wide range of stakeholders that have been involved at different levels (local, regional, national, international) but also from a wide range of different sectors (public, private, NGO, voluntary and professional backgrounds, educational, political etc).
3.1
Learning outcomes for the Swedish partner
Looking at the project at large, this is the first large scale cooperation project that the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs has with another partner working with similar activities in another country. The design of the project has provided possibilities to explore the benefits of youth policy at local level with an international dimension. With the renewed youth policy framework in the European Union adopted during the Swedish presidency in 2009, our estimate is that such cooperation building on transfer of knowledge between different ministries and authorities on expert issues will continue to be important. This cooperation with our Turkish counterparts has been very valuable in providing models and ideas for any future cooperation in the civil society field. Internally within the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs this project design was a cooperation between two units, the international affairs department and the national and local youth policy department. It has been an added value for the project at large to bring in various competencies in the project, but organisationally this was at times challenging when staff reported to different management staff, when concrete cooperation was to be put in place and when internally monitoring the project. However, the internal organisational factors have not in any way been a hindrance in the deliverance and the way the project was carried out.
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3.2
Learning outcomes for the Turkish partner
Despite the long term close cooperation with the Council of Europe and Germany in the field of youth and youth policy development, for the Youth Services Department this is the first comprehensive project carried out under five components with different themes: concepts of youth field, knowledge of living conditions of youth, networking in the youth field, promotion of youth employment and awareness of social services and rights for youth. Through different activities each component involved representatives of governmental and non-governmental organisations, parliamentarians, researchers, academicians and young people from both countries. These activities provided great opportunities for the participants to gain further deep insight not only about the importance but also the challenges of youth policy development. All project activities strengthened the importance of the cross-sectoral holistic approach to the youth issues that should perceive young people as resource and prerequisite for the decision making process. This three year project served as eye opener for the local youth organisations and youth centres in Turkey that gained international experience by sharing local experiences. Although Youth Services Department is different from its partner organisation in terms of reference, mainly focusing on leisure time activities and protection of youth, it goes beyond the scope of its mandate since a long time as there is no other governmental institution responsible for youth policy development. For the Youth Services Department this project also had a very important function as a propellant power highlighting the importance of the institutional restructuring of youth issues in Turkey. One of the important learning outcomes for the Youth Services Department is the LUPP (Local follow-up of youth policy) survey carried out in 17 provinces of Turkey. This survey will be a good model for the future nationwide surveys.
3.3
Learning outcomes and risk assessment
Initially, as presented in the Inception report, a risk analysis was made for the project, which has facilitated the execution of the project. Identified risks included lack of political stability, stern historical/political ideas of Turkey from Swedish participants with Turkish origin, tight time frame and hence related visa problems, misunderstandings due to cultural differences, complications due to administrative differences and routines, changes within structure of youth policy in Turkey, and complications due to change of project leaders and personnel. In fact, most of the potential risks did happen, with change of project leaders and personnel, start of new political landscape formation on youth policy in Turkey, tight time schedule, differences in administrative routines including translations of agreements etc. However, most of these scenarios did not pose problems for the carrying out of the project. Ironically, language barriers, which indeed posed challenges in the execution of the project, were not mentioned in advance as a risk.
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3.3.1
Language barriers
Clearly, language barriers took more resources than initially planned. Financially, we needed to put more attention to translators, and to alter our plans of the documentation materials to be bilingual in English and Turkish, initially not foreseen. This was made available due to reduction of other costs in the project, which was a necessity for the project at large. Also costs for interpreters at different meetings were mostly included, but in some activities this was added. Not only was it time consuming and cumbersome with translations in the Turkish language, but several texts that were directly produced in English did not have the required level of written language where Swedish researchers and journalists had overestimated their language skills. Quite some time and financial efforts/resources were made from both the Swedish and Turkish side to ensure a sufficient level of written language (both in Turkish and English) to be able to disseminate the compendia as planned. Furthermore, with the change of project leader on the Turkish side, the team no longer had a joint working language in English. Luckily enough there were other resources available in the Swedish and Turkish teams that were able to translate in Turkish-English or Swedish-Turkish-English which facilitated communication between the partners considerably. In addition, professional interpreters have been used in the more formal settings, workshops etc, which has been rated as successful among those that participated in the different activities. 3.3.2
Time schedule
The project and related budget was initially set up early 2007, and was approved by Sida during summer of 2007, but under condition that a concrete project plan was elaborated according to LFA-workshop methodologies by early 2008. This was done accordingly. The Swedish-Turkish cooperation was elaborated during the LFA-workshop and provided basis of a functioning collaboration. The partners had underestimated the possibility on the Turkish side to finance a project leader, both in financial terms, but more so for the bureaucratic procedures and lengthy administration to identify and employ such a person, thus hindering an equal partnership from the start. Hence Sida exceptionally agreed to contribute for a project leader on the Turkish side during the first year of the project. After one year, the project leader on the Turkish side went on military service and his tasks were moved to other units within the YSD department, more strategically suited in terms of youth policy development in Turkey, linking it with national policy development. The national youth department was in charge of the project, with a close cooperation with the international department of the same organisation. Practically, no additional resources were made available, but four persons worked closely with the project in addition to their previous work activities. As the overall programme of the project was rather hectic, squeezing in almost a three year time table in two years (due to available personnel resources designated for the project), this provided for a very large work load on all sides, but particularly on the Turkish side. In the end this has worked rather well, keeping momentum in the project, but the steering of the project has mainly been from Swedish side. The Turkish side has at times not had time to initiate and develop new ideas and strategies, but acted more reactive, reacting on proposals and suggestions from the Swedish partner.
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3.4
Feasibility-relevance-sustainability
The overall project design has been strategic with a base line or starting point on youth issues at large. With the mix of different actors involved, both from the local youth field, decision makers, young persons themselves but also researchers and other experts, the organizers finds that both the feasibility and relevance of the project has been good, which also is shown in the external evaluation. With the change of project leaders in both countries, the planned time table for the planning of activities was at times too tight. Quality was maintained due to commitment from project promoters and all the participating organisations, partners and participants involved. The aims set up for the project and the project design has been of high feasibility, pinpointing success factors in youth employment and especially the knowledge based youth situation. The project has reached the aims of promoting the recognition of young people’s potential and to learn about young people’s needs as well as promoting active participation by youth in society. At times there has been a very ambitious time table. Some participants expressed that they had difficulty grasping the entire project at large, as they were involved in parts of the project. However, at the final conference there were synergies and potential for networking beyond the different parts of the organisation. The project has been of high relevance in terms of elaborating youth policy or youth concepts at local and regional levels. In Turkey, particular interest was the survey methods and scope to get better knowledge of young people’s needs. In Sweden, the municipalities have appreciated the added value of international cooperation and new food for thoughts brought with the project. Several participants indicate that through discussions and cooperation with another country, this has brought perspectives on their own local reality as well. The large number of different partners involved in the project have allowed for international experiences to bring back to local level or in the respective organisation. The project is initially set up as cooperation between two institutions, the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs and the Youth Services Department. It is too early to claim true sustainability between the main actors, although the willingness and trust for further cooperation and sharing of experiences are there. In terms of networking and sustainable partnerships at large among participating actors, several different projects have been initiated at local level among the participants. Sustainability will be a matter of financing resources for new projects, however as reference points and international partnerships the project has shown a reliable potential for sustainability. For further comments, please see the external evaluators report.
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4
Ideas for the future
From the project partners’ perspective, this project has been successful which to a large extent is confirmed in the external evaluation report made by SPM Consultants. The project has provided opportunities to deeper explore and enhance youth policies and approaches both in Sweden and Turkey. The wide range of partners has been of particular interest from the Swedish perspective. At the evaluative meeting between the partners in February 2010 some areas of further interest to collaborate were raised, see below. The next step would be to see whether any of the areas would be elaborated and strategically would fit with the Strategy for development cooperation with Turkey 2010-2013 as decided by the Swedish government in January 2010. Turkish representatives identified the following fields as of interest for the future: • Youth unemployment in general, unemployment among disabled youth in particular. • The rights based perspective in general. It is a potentially useful tool for youth themselves and a new field for the local administrative level in Turkey. • LUPP survey (local follow-up of youth policy) – possibly an apt tool for local governments to map issues and corresponding solutions. Thus, it can also provide a platform for cooperation around various issues between various players, governmental as well as nongovernmental. Swedish representatives deemed following issues worth exploring for future cooperation: • Seminars on unemployment, rights and LUPP-methodology were particularly highlighted as success factors in the current project, with potential for further multiplying. • Future cooperation could also further include a diversification of participants – it is important that not only “elite” youth with excellent language skills frequent international seminars and alike. Most often the “right” individual makes a more valuable contribution despite possible shortcomings like lack of language or education. • The international perspective as a driving force in development is relevant to consider on all administrative levels, it is often forgotten on local level. • New personal and organisational relationships were established within each country, which form a solid foundation for future cooperation. Further discussions among the partners revealed experiences from this project that are particularly important to have in mind for future cooperation: • Improved common understanding of objectives. • Common coherent notion of the role of civil society. • The parties' background condition regarding political and organisational support should be more balanced for both parties, • The Turkish side emphasized that simplicity is important for political viability. Also, would we continue our cooperation in another project, we would more closely look at the time table to see what a feasible level of activities is, and to spread activities more evenly throughout the project time. Also this would allow for more reflection along the way. We would also have an even more thorough joint preparation time together before the project start on contents as well as budgetary aspects made available for the project and better agree on the costs that the project would cover and how.
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5
Organisation and administration
5.1
Developments in Turkey
In the first year of the project, one person was employed in Turkey, agreed with Sida that the grant would cover this. Technically, the Turkish project coordinator was employed outside the project partners organisations, but had skills and operational capacity within the area. Following his leave for military service, the project coordination on the Turkish side was then placed more strategically on an operational level within the national and international departments of the Youth Services Department. This was very beneficial for the aims of the project to be more closely linked to the actual implementers of youth activities and youth policy in Turkey. The organisational capacities were also improved in terms of translation possibilities, organisational back up in interpreting agreements etc. Four persons from YSD have then been involved in the project, without funding from Sida. There were no additional resources to add staff for this project, however four staff has taken on the tasks for running the project in addition to their everyday work. This has been cumbersome, but high priority has been placed to this cooperation project and other national projects have been lesser prioritized in order to fulfil the obligations within this cooperation.
5.2
Developments in Sweden
Also on the Swedish side, project coordination changed. The main project coordinator was present as from preparing the initial application for a grant from Sida, preparing the LFA-workshop, and the running and design of the actual project as decided in the LFAworkshop. During the first years the equivalent of two full time staff were working within the project – this was also the most hectic times with many planned activities until summer 2009. Following the project coordinator’s maternity leave, another project coordinator took on the role during the final year, with the equivalent of one full time staff, contributed by Sida. Despite the changes in both partner countries, the initial time schedule has been kept intact with only minor changes from the initial plan.
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6
Budget follow up and cost efficiency
6.1
Financial changes in relation to Inception report
The total budget granted from Sida for this project was 8.619.750 SEK. The enclosed table shows the actual breakdown of costs over the years, based on the quarterly reporting periods (February, May, August and November), hence not covering exactly breakdown on yearly basis. 2007 was the startup period as from June onwards, and the Inception report was submitted by the end of February 2008. From March 2008 the approved project plan was put in practice. 2010 has been evaluative and the project was completed at the end of June. Year
Total
Fees
Reimbursables
Procent of
(SEK)
(SEK)
(SEK)
total budget
2007
962.602
751.710
210.892
11%
2008
2.514.274
1.833.129
681.145
29%
2009
3.625.499
1.867.834
1.757.665
42%
2010
1.439.709
777.011
662.698
16%
Total
8.542.084
5.229.684
3.312.400
100%
100%
61%
39%
When looking at the initially planned budgets for the different strands of the project and the final outcomes of the activities covered by Sida, the result is the following: Strand
Initial budget
Final spending
Procent of initial budget
1. Knowledge of youth policy
697.242
578.400
83%
2. Knowledge about living conditions
728.165
543.736
75%
1.188.708
1.479.799
124%
4. Youth employment
861.008
688.328
80%
5. Social services and rights
287.470
312.307
109%
3.905.085
3.773.076
97%
952.072
1.166.437
123%
8 619 750
8 542 084
99%
3. Establish platforms/networks
Project management Preparatory costs until February 2008 Total
A revised project budget was approved by Sida in November 2009.
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6.2
Project co-funding and cost efficiency
Initially, the overall project has had its main contributors for co-funding from the Youth in Action programme in Sweden and in Turkey. In addition, a grant was awarded from the Swedish Consulate General in Istanbul, covering translation costs at the final conference. Furthermore the largest contribution for co-funding came from the Turkish partner in the project; Youth Services Department and some additional funds were put at disposal also from the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs. In total, co-funding has added 17 % to the budget that SIDA initially funded the project, the lion part of the share has been for reimbursables. As the Turkish partners were not in a position to finance salaries (fees) in Turkey, it was agreed between the partners and Sida that project contribution were made for reimbursables in different activities. Co-financing
Total (SEK)
Fees (SEK)
Reimbursables (SEK)
Procent of cofinancing budget
Youth in Action - SE
199 064
30 486
168 578
14%
Youth in Action - TR
82 862
4 857
78 005
6%
Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs Youth Services Department
50 000
0
50 000
3%
1 065 152
0
1 065 152
74%
50 000
0
0
3%
1 447 078
35 343
1 361 735
100%
2%
94%
Final SIDA-funding
8 517 435
5 205 034
3 312 399
Co-financing share
17%
1%
41%
Consulate General Sweden Total
As for cost efficiency, analysis was made by the external evaluator, with favourable outcomes. The project partners have followed the agreed budget closely and whenever costs were saved in other activities, costs were transferred to the final event, as agreed with Sida. Funding needed also to be available to cover additional translation costs between English and Turkish as well as between Swedish and English in the results produced and disseminated.
6.3
Auditing report
During August 2010 we had the annual auditing as required from Sida related to the finances of the project implementation. A certified auditor from SET Revisionsbyr책 AB was contracted by The Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs, and has carried out the auditing. Auditing has thus been consistent and coherent throughout the project and all parts have been audited from the very start to the closing of the project. There were no remarks in the auditing certificate from the certified auditor.
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© Ungdomsstyrelsen 2010 editor Lotta Jarvenius Rössner, Vildan Görbil and Aysegül Böke
distribution: Sweden and Turkey
cover Christián Serrano
website Sweden website Turkey
Youth in Action
Education and Culture
www.ungdomsstyrelsen.se/publikationer www.ghdb.gov.tr