Women of Ukraine: Heard, Capable, Resilient was specifically designed to offer sustainable, locally appropriate development solutions while maintaining programmatic flexibility and ensuring long lasting effect. Pact has positioned this initiative so that it is sustained by existing institutions, networks, processes, procedures, toolkits, and standards that support local organizations to drive their own development.

For us, the path to sustainability and local ownership always was and remains putting the power of knowledge back into the hands of local civil society and communities - helping them lead the process of capacity development at their level. We see our role as catalyzing the work that happens on the ground, strengthening local partners’ voice, local partners’ empowerment, local ownership in design of capacity strengthening initiatives and local leadership in their implementation.

This Project used an asset-based cascading approach to capacity development working with and through local Ukrainian organizations equipping them with tools, approaches, and methodologies to serve as capacity development resources around women’s rights beyond the life of project.

Recognizing the complexity of the Ukrainian women’s rights ecosystem, and to foster participation of large number of a broad range of actors – including CSOs, government, public institutions and private sector – Pact applied a collective impact approach and supported a number of activities building joint vision and united action at the regional and national level. This approach enabled key Project partners to serve as backbone organizations, ensuring that they remain conveners and networkers beyond the life of project.

We are glad to summarize and present our technical approaches and reflections on the Project’s capacity development strategy and its key components together with the key achievements and results from its implementation. We hope it adequately captures and commemorates the effort, commitment, and unrelenting passion of the Women of Ukraine staff and our partners and collaborators in serving our communities.

This document is made possible by the support of the Government of Canada through the Women of Ukraine: Heard, Capable, Resilient project implemented by Pact. The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government of Canada and Pact.