At its core, the project focused on empowering CSOs in five municipalities in Burundi while raising awareness among municipal administrations about the value of inclusive public policy dialogue.

Some background information on the country:

Economic & Development Challenges

Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world, with extreme poverty, limited access to basic services, and ongoing energy and fuel shortages that affect daily life and economic activity. The lack of infrastructure, electricity access, and investment remains a major constraint on development.

Political and Governance Landscape

Governance in Burundi has been shaped by political instability and authoritarian tendencies. Freedom of expression, association, and assembly—core foundations for a thriving civil society—are restricted, and CSOs often operate in a tightly controlled environment.

Civil Society Reality

While civil society plays a vital role in community development, many organizations face legal and practical constraints. Laws introduced in recent years require NGOs to comply with strict reporting and operational rules, and organizations often self-censor to avoid conflict with authorities.

Importance of CSO Engagement

Despite restrictions, CSOs remain essential partners in addressing community needs—especially in areas like human rights, poverty reduction, environmental protection, and social cohesion. International actors (EU, AFD, UNDP, GIZ and others) continue to fund programs that strengthen CSO capacities and support dialogue between civil society and authorities.

Women’s networks in southern Yemen operate in a context marked by prolonged conflict, political fragmentation, shrinking civic space, and significant security and mobility constraints. Despite these challenges, women and women-led networks continue to play vital roles as community organisers, service providers, and mediators. However, their ability to influence decision-making and engage sustainably at district and governorate levels remains limited.

Mapping conducted under the ParticiLogue project highlights persistent capacity gaps across women’s networks — including weaknesses in organisational governance, strategic planning, advocacy, financial management, and inter-network collaboration. These challenges affect both formal and informal networks, albeit in different ways. While informal groups often benefit from community trust and flexibility, formal networks offer structure and visibility but face bureaucratic and political constraints.

Against this backdrop, targeted, context-sensitive capacity development is essential. The Mentorship and Peer Learning Programme is designed as a holistic response that goes beyond stand-alone trainings, combining mentorship, peer exchange, and practical capacity-building to strengthen women’s agency, resilience, and collective action in a fragile environment.

In southern Yemen, women and girls face severe marginalization due to years of conflict, political fragmentation, and entrenched patriarchal norms. Access to education, healthcare, livelihoods, and political participation remains extremely limited, with marginalized groups such as the Muhamasheen and internally displaced women particularly vulnerable.

Despite these challenges, women have shown resilience, taking on roles as heads of households, income earners, peacebuilders, and community leaders. In areas like Aden and Hadramout, women-led organizations continue to support communities and advocate for rights, though shrinking civic space and low trust between state and society hinder progress.

The rise of internet and social media use—around 3.6 million users by January 2024—has opened new opportunities for connection and engagement, but also exposed women to technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), including online harassment, threats, and defamation. Low digital literacy, lack of cybercrime laws, and patriarchal norms exacerbate these risks, leaving many women unable or unwilling to seek help.

There is an urgent need to raise awareness of TFGBV and implement protective, context-sensitive measures that empower women and girls online and offline. Strengthening women’s networks and agency will enable greater participation in society at district and governorate levels.

The project “Supporting Participation and Dialogue in Yemen” (ParticiLogue), implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), aims to improve societal conditions for peaceful coexistence in Aden, Taiz, and Hadramout. Years of conflict, political fragmentation, and limited civic participation have created mistrust between the state, civil society, and local communities, weakening the foundations for peace.

ParticiLogue strengthens local governance by training civil society actors and public institutions in transparency, accountability, and inclusive participation. A key focus is empowering women and women’s networks, combining individual skill-building with organizational support to enhance their role in decision-making processes. Male allies are included to promote gender equality and support women’s participation.

The project also engages youth as agents of change, building skills in non-violent communication, conflict transformation, and media literacy. Through safe spaces for dialogue—both online and offline—young people gain confidence to contribute to peacebuilding and co-create visions for positive societal change.

Our training is implemented as part of this project.

Experts for Team Europe Democracy is a strategic project supporting the EU’s collective efforts to strengthen civic space and local democratic governance worldwide. On behalf of Enabel, the Belgian Development Agency, the project delivers a comprehensive mapping and analysis of initiatives across both online and offline civic space and local democratic governance, led by EU institutions and the 14 Team Europe Democracy (TED) Member States.

The work systematically identifies ongoing and planned actions by DG INTPA, DG NEAR, the EEAS and selected EU Delegations, highlighting best practices, fostering mutual learning, and pinpointing concrete opportunities for stronger coordination and joint action across Team Europe.

Building on this mapping, the project develops a high-value knowledge product that synthesises the findings with existing work from TED Working Group 2, including reports and webinars. Together, these outputs translate evidence into actionable insights, helping Team Europe actors align strategies, amplify impact, and more effectively support democratic actors on the ground.

Key deliverables include:

• A detailed internal mapping report for EU and Member State stakeholders

• An accessible knowledge product designed to inform, inspire and guide a broader audience