The project “PARTICIPATE: Empowered CSOs and ethnic minority (EM) youth for active participation in decision making in Yen Bai, Vietnam” (EU/PARTICIPATE) funded by European Commission has been carrying out by Save the Children and the local parters in 9 communes in Tran Yen district, Yen Bai Province from December 2020 to April 2023.
The overall objective of the project was that CSOs in Vietnam effectively promote youth empowerment in governance and development processes. The project aimed at ensuring that target social organizations and implementing partners in Yen Bai province had the capacity to support entrepreneurs and other socio-economic development of vulnerable EM youth, fostering their engagement and active participation in decision-making and in the promotion of gender equality. The key target beneficiaries were 300 ethnic minority youth who are from 16 to 24 years old, in which, 50% were female and 70% are ethnic minority. The estimated beneficiaries of the project included 12,000 young workers and 10,000 local people.
The endline evaluation were carried from Dec 2022 to Mar 2023 to assess the project’s outcomes, changes, and impacts on the community based on eight criteria: relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impacts, sustainability, cross cutting issues and learning. The evaluation method was combined between qualitative and quantitative methods. The consultant team reviewed and studied the related documents, conducted a survey using a questionnaire on the Kobo Toolbox with 337 youth and 13 staff from four CSOs. The initiative assessment was built by using a questionnaire with criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of 16 initiatives. In addition, qualitative data were collected through eight focus group discussions with youth, PMUs of project communes, SC and SUDECOM, nine individual interviews with commune leaders, district People’s Committee, CSOs, representative of businesses, etc to support the statements for evaluation and to clarify the quantitative information. The collected information was cross checked and managed to ensure the confidentiality of the information.
The evaluation encountered some limitations, mainly related to access to the youth. The final number of youth for the quantitative analysis did not meet the initial expectations due to difficult access to youth and the limited time that the youth could spend for the interviews (including focus group discussions, personal interviews/exchanges). Especially, it was difficult to arrange time to discuss with the initiative groups because they were very busy.

The learnt lessons and recommendations from this project for future projects include:
• The design and implementation of the project should focus on the needs and internal resources of youth, depending on specific characteristics of each youth group based on ethnicity, age and gender. In the EU/Participation project, the youth themselves discovered their own and local needs and strengths.
• Mobilize meaningful participation of project stakeholders, CSOs as project partners, local authorities, youth, and other stakeholders, thereby creating an enabling environment for the youth to develop.
• From the beginning of the project, it is necessary to provide knowledge, skills, methods, and the ability to critique for the stakeholders. Knowledge and soft skills can be provided by different forms: training, technical guidance, study tours, experience exchange, forums, dialogues for stakeholders.
• The results of this project can be considered as an evidence to advocate for interventions for youth at age 16-24. Learnt lessons should be summarized and shared with the authorities, social organizations and other development organizations for their reference and application to other localities, not only in Yen Bai but also in Vietnam.