Impact assessments and project evaluations
These are specific reports that highlight monitoring and evaluation efforts that can be part of governmental or non-governmental programs. These will include theories of change and conclusions about the impact of a specific project, intervention, action, or policy.
Resource Library
Navigate through our resource library, search for the terms you are interested in and the table will populate automatically with matching results.| Title | Authors | Subject Keywords | Abstract | Link | Country Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management | Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) | Evaluation | The DAC Working Party on Aid Evaluation (WP-EV) has developed this glossary of key terms in evaluation and results-based management because of the need to clarify concepts and to reduce the terminological confusion frequently encountered in these areas. | https://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/2754804.pdf | Worldwide |
| Final Evaluation: Youth Engage Project Multi-stakeholders Collaboration in Reducing Youth Engagement in Violence | Bibhuti Bista | Conflict Resolution, Project Evaluation, | This evaluation report assess the impact of the Youth Engage: Multi-stakeholder Collaboration in Reducing Youth Engagement in Violence that was implemented from December of 2014 to December of 2016 in Nepal. The report relies on a participatory approach to conduct the research. The report highlights the benefits of youth engagement and training to reduce violence in communities. This report emphasizes the importance of capacity building and strengthening the abilities of local organizations, local leaders, and law enforcement. The report looks at how development projects can foster dialogue and increase trust between stakeholders and as a result reduce their engagement in criminal and violent activities. | https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5db70e83fc0a966cf4cc42ea/t/5f3c1d7fb70ffd12b9aa4dc7/1597775233053/0501.pdf | Nepal |
| From Conflict to Coping: Evidence from Southern Ethiopia on the contributions of peacebuilding to drought resilience among pastoralist groups | Jon Kurtz, Greg Scarborough | Conflict Resolution, Project Evaluation | This evaluation report assess the impact of Mercy Corps peaebuilding programs in Southern Ethiopia. In particular, the evaluation reports looks at the effects of the Strengthening Institutions for Peace and Development (SIPED) project | https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5db70e83fc0a966cf4cc42ea/t/5f3d8d985b5b1a594513029e/1597869466741/0595.pdf | Ethiopia |
| Final Evaluation of Project: Promoting Locally – Driven Transformation and Collaborative Action in Burundi | Sylvestre Bigirimana | Mediation, Project Evaluation | This evaluation report showcases evidence of what works in terms of conflict mitigation considering refugees returns, and how media and broadcasting activities can play a role in building transparency and communication between local communities and national representatives. The evaluation report features useful indicators that could be of value for organizations looking to implement similar projects. | https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5db70e83fc0a966cf4cc42ea/t/5f36e3bcab3dc4397cf750b2/1597432766591/0369.pdf | Burundi |
| A handbook for development practitioners: ten steps to a results-based monitoring and evaluation system | Jody Zall Kusek and Ray C. Rist | Project Evaluation | An effective state is essential to achieving socio-economic and sustainable development. With the advent of globalization, there are growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to the demands of internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), civil society, international organizations, and donors are among the stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater accountability and real results have increased, there is an attendant need for enhanced results-based monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs, and projects. This handbook provides a comprehensive ten-step model that will help guide development practitioners through the process of designing and building a results-based monitoring and evaluation system. These steps begin with a 'readiness assessment' and take the practitioner through the design, management, and importantly, the sustainability of such systems. The handbook describes each step in detail, the tasks needed to complete each one, and the tools available to help along the way. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12763 | Worldwide |
| Together We Can: Supporting Local Peace Efforts in Magwi County | Adalei Broers, Amzah Juma | Project Evaluation, Mediation | This report offers approaches to conducting conflict mapping exercises and engages local partners and local communities to resolve conflict and to intervene in case of an event to reduce tensions. The report focuses on conflict mediation efforts in between two tribal groups in South Sudan: The Madi, and the Acholi. The report highlights the importance of unifiers in bringing communities together and finding common ground that can help foster peace and stability. In particular, the report showcases the crucial role that religious leaders can play in peace processes. Critically, the report notes the pressures on Women in those communities and the pivotal role they play in their communities and in the peace processes. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12764 | South Sudan |
| Advancing Reconciliation and Promoting Peace in Northern Mali (ARPP) | Mercy Corps | Mediation, Early Warning, Conflict Resolution | This report showcases evidence of project effectiveness in reducing youth involvement in violence, building mediation capacity to resolve conflicts, and building locally driven early warning systems in Mali. | https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5db70e83fc0a966cf4cc42ea/t/5f4920167f5bd244a3cb628a/1598627863401/1396.pdf | Mali |
| Evaluation of Search for Common Ground Programming in Liberia | Susan Shepler, Olaide Omideyi, Clementine Lue Clark | Project Evaluation, Mediation, Peacemaking | This evaluation report provides insight into how peace committees, advocacy, and spreading awareness through media can help reduce tensions between communities. The report further offers insights into the impact of financial constraints on peacemaking projects. | https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5db70e83fc0a966cf4cc42ea/t/5f344ea8f8fcbb7dfed5d227/1597263529886/0344.pdf | Liberia |
| Youth and NonViolence in Guinea | Frances Fortune, Quentin Kanyatsi | Project Evaluation, Mediation, Peacemaking, Youth, Conflict Prevention | This evaluation report provides useful information about the intervention in Guinea with clear metrics as to how the project has helped improve the mediation skills of the Youth population and led to better mediation and reduction in violence. There is a particular focus on elections for this project that can offer generalizable knowledge that can be applied to other cases where there is a risk of violence surrounding elections. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12780 | Guinea |
| Designing for Results: Integrating Monitoring and Evaluation in Conflict Transformation Programs | Cheyanne Church and Mark Rogers | Project Evaluation, Conflict Resolution | This manual, produced by Search for Common Ground in partnership with the United States Institute of Peace and the Alliance for Peacebuilding, focuses on the challenges faced by conflict transformation practitioners in their attempts to measure and increase the effectiveness of their work with practical tips and examples from around the world. As an introductory volume and one of the first to focus on the practical application of integrated design, monitoring and evaluation, it seeks to introduce peacebuilding practitioners to the concepts, tools, and methods needed to incorporate better design, monitoring, and evaluation practices into peacebuilding programming. | https://www.dmeforpeace.org/resource/designing-for-results-integrating-monitoring-and-evaluation-in-conflict-transformation-activities/ | Worldwide |
| Incremental Inclusivity in Peace Processes: Lessons Learnt | Andreas Schädel and Véronique Dudouet | Project Evaluation, Inclusive Peace Processes | This policy brief provides evidence-based lessons learnt and recommendations on the timing, sequencing and modalities of inclusion of nonsignatory armed groups and civil society actors in peace processes. It aims to inform a strategic understanding on how to design and implement peace processes that are effective in bringing about an inclusive political, economic and social transformation. In particular, it draws on a comparative assessment of ‘incremental inclusion’ approaches for nonsignatory armed groups and civil society actors during the negotiation and implementation of peace agreements in Afghanistan, Colombia, Mali and Myanmar. | https://berghof-foundation.org/library/incremental-inclusivity-in-peace-processes-key-lessons-learnt | Worldwide |
| Peace Process Support in Times of Crises: The National Dialogue Support Programme in Yemen 2014-16 | Oliver Wils, Sonja Neuweiler | Conflict Management and Resolution, Dialogue | This report details the work of the National Dialogue Support Programme (NDSP) in Yemen during the period of 2014-16. It provides the analysis from the perspective of the Berghof Foundation which was Originally set up in 2012, the NDSP provided process, facilitation and logistical support, negotiation and dialogue trainings, as well as analysis papers, coaching and public education materials to the National Dialogue Conference (NDC). The NDSP was actually run by the Berghof Foundation in collaboration with Political Development Forum Yemen. The National Dialogue Support Programme's aim was to strengthen and protect the political transition process by supporting locally-owned and inclusive structures and mechanisms for political dialogue, informed decision-making and trust- and consensus-building. Yet, at the same time it had to respond to the political dynamics in Yemen which changed dramatically - and at times very quickly- between February 2014 and December 2016. This report presents many of the lessons learned, particularly about the coordination of a dialogue facilitation process in conjunction with a high-level political process. It also explores how the dialogue process incorporated informal dialogues and local level peacebuilding. | https://berghof-foundation.org/library/peace-process-support-in-times-of-crises-the-national-dialogue-support-programme-in-yemen-2014-16 | Yemen |
| Evaluating Peacebuilding: Not Yet All It Could Be | Cheyanne Scharbatke Church | Project Evaluation, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation | This handbook assesses the quality of peacebuilding evaluation work being undertaken in a rapidly professionalizing field. The author gives several examples of good and bad practice and suggests that current evaluation practice is failing to foster accountability and learning quite as well as it could. She explores reasons why evaluation may fall short of established quality standards or stray from its explicitly stated purpose, offering recommendations for improvement to researchers, practitioners and donors alike. | https://berghof-foundation.org/library/evaluating-peacebuilding-not-yet-all-it-could-be | Worldwide |
| The “Do No Harm” Framework for Analyzing the Impact of Assistance on Conflict: A Handbook. | CDA Collaborative Learning Projects | Program Evaluation, Conflict Resolution, Aid | Although it is clear that, by itself, assistance neither causes nor can end conflict, it can be a significant factor in conflict contexts. Assistance can have important effects on intergroup relations and on the course of intergroup conflict. In a DNH IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT area, for example, one NGO provided 90% of all local employment in a sizable region over a number of years. In another, the NGO estimated that militia looting of assistance garnered US $400 million in one brief (and not unique) rampage. Both of these examples occurred in very poor countries where assistance's resources represented significant wealth and power. At the same time, giving no assistance would also have an impact—often negative. The DNH has thus chosen to focus on how to provide assistance more effectively and how those of us who are involved in providing assistance in conflict areas can assume responsibility and hold ourselves accountable for the effects that our assistance has in worsening and prolonging, or in reducing and shortening, destructive conflict between groups whom we want to help. The DO NO HARM “Analytical Framework” was developed from the programming experience of many assistance workers. It provides a tool for mapping the interactions of assistance and conflict and can be used to plan, monitor and evaluate both humanitarian and development assistance programmes. The Framework is NOT prescriptive. It is a descriptive tool that: 1) identifies the categories of information that have been found through experience to be important for understanding how assistance affects conflict; 2) organizes these categories in a visual lay-out that highlights their actual and potential relationships; and 3) helps us predict the impacts of different programming decisions. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12715 | Worldwide |
| Adding Up to Peace: The Cumulative Impacts of Peace Initiatives | Diana Chigas and Peter Woodrow | Peace Initiatives, Impact Assessments, Case Studies | This book aims to identify how cumulative impacts in peace practice operate at all levels, in order to provide practical lessons for policymakers, donors and practitioners to develop more effective strategies for greater progress towards peace. This book builds on CDA’s Reflecting on Peace Practice Project (RPP), launched to answer the question: What works—and what doesn’t work—in peacebuilding? It seeks to deepen our understanding of how multiple peacebuilding initiatives in a conflict zone interacted and added up (or didn’t), to result in progress towards larger societal level peace, or Peace Writ Large. The findings are a product of sixteen case studies conducted between 2007 and 2012, gathering the perceptions of both local and international stakeholders. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12748 | Worldwide |
| Gender Trainings in International Peace and Security: Toward a More Effective Approach | Sarah-Myriam Martin-Brûlé, Stéfanie von Hlatky, Savita Pawnday, Marie-Joëlle Zahar | Gender, effectiveness, reflection, training, evaluation | As more and more states and organizations adopt a gendered approach to international policy, trainings on how to conduct gender-based analysis and integrate gender perspectives into policies and programming have proliferated. But despite this increase in gender trainings, it remains unclear how effective they have been due to challenges related to their design, delivery, targeting, and evaluation. After mapping the ecosystem of gender trainings in the realm of international peace and security, this issue brief unpacks each of these challenges. It concludes with a set of recommendations for improving gender trainings. | https://www.ipinst.org/2020/07/gender-trainings-in-international-peace-and-security | Worldwide |
| Failing Together: Key Lessons On How To Have Constructive Conversations About Failures In Development And Peacebuilding | Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik, Emily Janoch, Benjamin Bestor, Saurav Upadhyay | Development, evidence-based practice | Development and peacebuilding is about tackling complex problems with different stakeholders in contexts that change every day. There is no way to solve these problems without failing. But we are reluctant to talk about failure, especially on the record. Veronica Olazabal from The Rockefeller Foundation, Lane Pollack from USAID, and Leslie Wingender with Humanity United recently spoke about what it takes to learn from failure as part of the InterAction Evaluation & Program Effectiveness Community of Practice. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/failing-together-5-5-2021 | Worldwide |
| Guiding Steps For Peacebuilding Design, Monitoring, & Evaluation | Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik & Sharon Morris | theories of change, design, monitoring, and evaluation (DM&E), networks | Good evaluation can only happen if we think about learning and evidence at the start of a program. This document, Guiding Steps for Peacebuilding Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation, details seven steps, outlined below, that are the minimum set of steps every peacebuilding program must adhere to in order to contribute to robust evidence and learning in the peacebuilding field. In the document that follows, each step is explained and the critical elements and their importance are outlined. We also provide an initial list of key resources for each step. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12783 | Worldwide |
| Key Themes From Digital Workshop On Building Evidence Based Practice In Peacebuilding | Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik, Saurav Upadhyay | evidence-based practice, WPS, | The Alliance for Peacebuilding, Better Evidence Project, and One Earth Future organized a Digital Workshop to promote collaboration among global peacebuilding practitioners on advancing the field’s evidence-based practice. Alliance for Peacebuilding’s Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik and One Earth Future’s Conor Seyle presented findings from their recently released report: Some Credible Evidence: Perceptions about the Evidence Base in the Peacebuilding Field. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/key-themes-buidling-evidence-based-practice | Worldwide |
| Faith Matters: A Guide For The Design, Monitoring, & Evaluation Of Inter-Religious Peacebuilding | Peter Woodrow, Nick Oatley, & Michelle Garred | religion, design, monitoring, and evaluation (DM&E), peacebuilding | The Guide outlines the decisions and stages involved in setting up a monitoring process and undertaking an evaluation for inter‐religious action for peacebuilding. It adapts and supplements secular evaluation principles and practices to ensure that the monitoring and evaluation of inter-religious actions are sensitive to and respectful of faith traditions, values, practices, priorities and motivations—and that they capture adequately the important spiritual dimensions of the work. It draws on available “how to” guidance on monitoring and evaluation processes and includes multiple references to the most relevant resources. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/faith-matters-10-2017 | Global |
| Adding Up to Peace: The Cumulative Impacts of Peace Initiatives | Diana Chigas and Peter Woodrow | Peace Initiatives, Impact Assessments, Case Studies | This book aims to identify how cumulative impacts in peace practice operate at all levels, in order to provide practical lessons for policymakers, donors and practitioners to develop more effective strategies for greater progress towards peace. This book builds on CDA’s Reflecting on Peace Practice Project (RPP), launched to answer the question: What works—and what doesn’t work—in peacebuilding? It seeks to deepen our understanding of how multiple peacebuilding initiatives in a conflict zone interacted and added up (or didn’t), to result in progress towards larger societal level peace, or Peace Writ Large. The findings are a product of sixteen case studies conducted between 2007 and 2012, gathering the perceptions of both local and international stakeholders. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12748 | Worldwide |
| Violence Reduction Subsector Review & Evidence Evaluation | Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik & Emily Myers | theories of change, design, monitoring, and evaluation (DM&E), networks | With levels of global violent conflict at a 25-year peak, the need for effective and impactful peacebuilding programming could not be more pressing. The peacebuilding field has shown immense commitment to understanding, preventing, and mitigating the impact of violent conflict, but has struggled to aggregate evidence across efforts to analyze, understand, and advocate for what works to reduce violence. If the peacebuilding field identifies where its programming has directly correlated to reduced levels of violence, then it will be better able to ground program design, monitoring, and evaluation (DM&E) in evidence, and leverage evidence to advocate for the necessity and utility of the field – making the case for peace. This evidence evaluation and subsector review analyzes data from twenty-two cases. Six macro-level violence reduction Theories of Change (ToC) were developed across three approaches from an analysis of the peacebuilding cases and the strength of evidence for each was assessed. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/violence-reduction-subsector-4-2019 | Worldwide |
| People-to-people Peacebuilding: A Program Guide | USAID Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation | Peacebuilding, community-building, development, conflict sensitive. | This guide, developed in consultation with scholars and practitioners, provides specific guidelines on the implementation of people-to-people peacebuilding programs for use by USAID and its development partners. These programs, conducted in some of the most difficult and challenging environments, require special care to ensure impact, capture learning and advance a Do No Harm approach. The guidelines aim to assist program designers and evaluators in how best to do that by describing the state-of-the-art in people-to-people peacebuilding. Its purpose is to assist USAID staff at Missions, as well as others working in development and peacebuilding, to implement high-quality people-to-people programs. The guide is structured around fourteen guidelines grouped into three stages of the program cycle: design, implementation, theories of Change and monitoring and evaluation. The bibliography serves as an extensive reference for further research and learning. While the guidelines described in this guide would likely be applicable to most conflict mitigation programs, the focus of this document is specific to people-to-people programming and conflict-sensitive international development. The guidelines were identified based on extensive review of existing people-to-people programs and interviews in March-April 2010 with scholars of conflict resolution noted for their expertise in people-to-people approaches. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12752 | Worldwide |
| Engaging Civil Society Organizations in Conflict-Affected and Fragile States : Three African Country Case Studies | World Bank | Citizen action, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives , Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | Civil society organizations (CSOs) play a prominent role in conflict-affected and fragile states. In the absence of capable or credible public institutions due to conflict or weak policy environments, CSOs tend to substitute for public institutions and become primary providers of basic social services. At the same time, the international donor community has increased its involvement in countries affected by conflict and instability, often relying increasingly on CSOs to reach the poor. While the prominent role of CSOs in social service delivery and other development activities is often seen as an interim solution, it may extend for years, even decades. Recognizing that reliance on CSOs is likely to prevail for the foreseeable future in many countries, there is a need to consider how to make CSO engagement more effective and sustainable. The objective of this report is to identify approaches to more effectively engage CSOs in the context of weak public institutions in conflict-affected and fragile states. The report will: 1) Examine the roles, strengths, and weaknesses of CSOs in terms of service delivery, community development, advocacy, peace building, and governance; 2) Identify the factors that influence CSO effectiveness in performing these functions; 3) Assess donor influence on CSOs and their indirect influence on governance by supporting CSOs; and 4) Discuss the relationship between CSOs and government including their changing roles, weak communication, and government efforts to coordinate and regulate CSO activity. Key findings are presented from pilots of the Civil Society Assessment Tool (CSAT) in Angola, Guinea Bissau, and Togo. The pilots were conducted from January 2004 to February 2005. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12772 | Africa |
| Gender Dimensions of Disaster Risk and Resilience : Existing Evidence | Erman, Alvina; De Vries Robbe, Sophie Anne; Thies, Stephan Fabian; Kabir, Kayenat; Maruo, Mirai. | Gender, Youth, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | Men and women, boys and girls have different experiences of disasters. Gender dynamics impact both the way they are affected by disasters and their capacity to withstand and recover from them. Gender inequalities can result in gender-differentiated disaster impact, and differentiated impacts can influence gender dynamics, which in turn affect future resilience to shocks. Disaster risk management policies are designed to maximize results, taking local conditions - including gender dynamics - as fixed. When women and men are affected differently by disasters, practitioners and policy makers have a responsibility to use the tools available for mitigating disaster impacts to close gender gaps in outcome. An improved understanding of the gender dynamics of disaster risk and resilience also allows for better policy and program design, which benefits all stakeholders. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12777 | Worldwide |
| Inclusive Ceasefires and Peace Processes | NPSS | Ceasefire, negotiations, peace process, dialogue | The alarming number of conflicts and associated civilian casualties worldwide emphasizes the need to find resolution through peaceful means. The many methods of unarmed civilian protection (UCP) often prove successful in solving or calming conflicts with the long-term benefit of strengthening communities, infrastructure and ongoing dialogue that are needed to sustain hard-earned peace. Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) is a global civilian protection agency, working in some of the world’s most troubled zones to promote peace through civilian protection, reduction of community violence, and self-protection, conflict prevention, conflict management capacity development. Currently, NP has approximately 300 protection officers deployed in our programs in Iraq, Myanmar, Philippines, and South Sudan and we are collaborating with more than 50 implementing community organizations in 24 countries. To interrupt cycles of violence and facilitate sustainable peace, we work through five avenues, one of which is inclusive ceasefires and peace processes. | https://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/images/Publications/CoreComp/ceasefire_np.pdf | Global |
| Evaluating Media Interventions in Conflict Countries | Amelia Arsenault; Sheldon Himelfarb; Susan Abbott | Communications: Media Strategies, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Fondation Hirondelle, Internews Network, the United States Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict, and Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace commissioned this report following a five-day multistakeholder meeting of donors, implementers, and academics on how to better evaluate media’s impact in ameliorating conflict, at the Caux Conference Center in Switzerland. The report both reviews the state of the art in evaluating media interventions in conflict and outlines the Caux Guiding Principles (hereinafter, Caux Principles) for improving the evaluation process. It stresses effective evaluation as a critical step forward for using the media in conflict prevention and peacebuilding. | https://www.usip.org/publications/2011/10/evaluating-media-interventions-conflict-countries | Worldwide |
| Ten Foundations for Gender Inclusive Peacebuilding Practice | Abiosseh Davis | Gender, Inclusive Peacebuilding, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | The present Peacebuilding in Practice paper lays out the foundations for gender inclusive peacebuilding and is a result of a reflection process that Interpeace took between 2017 and 2019 to examine its implementation of gender programming. It demonstrates lessons learned and recommendations for developing, implementing and evaluating gender inclusive programmes. This Peacebuilding in Practice paper, developed through a consultative process across Interpeace offices as well as on an extensive literature review, aims to strengthen Interpeace’s capacity to bring its unique contribution to building sustainable peace and advancing gender equality. The practice note is intended to be complemented by the development and application of tools and processes that allow for the effective implementation of the ten identified foundations. | https://www.interpeace.org/resource/ten-foundations-for-gender-inclusive-peacebuilding-practice/ | Worldwide |
| Peace Education | Mari Fitzduff; Isabella Jean | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Training, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | This report is a result of an initiative to reflect on developments, contributions, and prospects in specific areas where USIP grantmaking has been concentrated. The authors were commissioned to review the state of the field, to identify the lessons learned, and to contemplate future directions of work in the area of peace education, with reference to USIP grantmaking. | https://www.usip.org/publications/2011/11/peace-education | Worldwide |
| USIP Report On Dialogue Projects And Transfer | Nike Carstaphen, Ilana Shapiro | Dialogue, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Conflict Prevention | This study focused on advancing understandings of dialogue ‘transfer’ processes and effects - or how dialogue effects on participants is spread or transmitted beyond that group to influence other groups, practices or policies, and make broader changes in society. It also examined changes in USIP grant-supported dialogue projects over time and assessed the relative success of different dialogue approaches. The goal was to provide an evidence base to help strengthen the design, implementation and evaluation of USIP grant supported dialogue projects and link lessons learned to strategic programmatic decision-making that improves the impact of peacebuilding initiatives. This report provides a review of the literature on dialogue processes and transfer in peacebuilding, and presents the research methods, results, lessons learned and recommendations for the United States Institute of Peace as it plans for future dialogue grant making. | https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/USIP-Dialogue-Grant-Meta-Review-Full-Evaluation-Report-10.2016.pdf | Worldwide |
| Nine Years of Nonviolent Peaceforce in Sri Lanka Lessons Learned in Implementing Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping | Christine Schweitzer | Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives, Peacekeeping, Dialogue, Early Warning | This report evaluates the work that Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) in Sri Lanka and the lessons that can be drawn from their experience in developing the tool of unarmed civilian peacekeeping. Nonviolence Peaceforce worked on the protection of children, IDP protection, facilitating dialogue and cooperation between communities, grass roots early warning systems, and building the capacity of local actors to engage in violence prevention. The report highlights the importance of good processes and planning, building relationships and trust amongst different parties involved, and the critical need for impartiality and non-partisanship when acting as a third-party. The report examines how unarmed civilian peacemaking goes beyond simply an unarmed version of military peacemaking and provides recommendations for future projects utilizing this approach to resolving conflicts. | https://nonviolentpeaceforce.org/images/publications/9yearsNPSL-Implementing_UCP-final.pdf | Sri Lanka |
| Reducing Armed Conflict In “Boendoe” | Elliot Short | Early Warning, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Monitoring/Verification: Third Party | The construction of a local peace infrastructure in the country known as “Boendoe” helped to reduce violence in the area and minimised the risk of an armed conflict. | https://bep.carterschool.gmu.edu/reducing-armed-conflict-in-boendoe/ | Boendoe |
| Building Just Societies: Reconciliation in Transitional Settings | Enrique Sánchez and Sylvia Rognvik | Reconciliation, Citizen Action, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | Reconciliation is a key objective in building sustainable peace and preventing a relapse into conflict. It is about (re) building relationships among people and groups in society and between the state and its citizens. The process is highly context sensitive, and each society has to tailor its approach to the nature of the conflict and the character of the transition. The reconciliation workshop held in Accra, Ghana in June 2012 gathered practitioners and experts from past and current reconciliation processes to share experiences in a practitioner dialogue and to inform future strategies and actions on reconciliation. It was a collaboration between the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF) and the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), and focused on lessons learned and good practices in thematic areas within reconciliation such as healing; the relation- ship between truth, justice and reconciliation; reparation; reconciliation efforts at different levels and how they are connected to one another; and the role of the international community. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/12-58492_feb13.pdf | Ghana |
| Evidence Based Peacemaking: What We Need to Know; What We Need to Share; What We Need to Learn | Better Evidence Project | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Training, Problem-Solving Workshop | This session is a discussion about what we know and don’t know, the next steps towards strengthening evidence-based peacebuilding, and where gaps remain. As a community of practice, how can we more effectively share what we are learning? At a minimum, evidence-based peacebuilding must result from meaningful input from, and collaboration with, practitioners and organizations in conflict-affected societies. How can scholars and researchers contribute to that? Search for Common Ground has developed a Global Impact Framework, in consultation with organizations and practitioners in the field, intended to bring together the lived experience of those living and working in conflict and to align measures that help people understand where they are most influential in transforming conflict. In doing so, Search for Common Ground and the Better Evidence Project, through its forthcoming Resource Center, are reframing the conversation about evidence related to peace and conflict in a way that can foster cross-fertilization and inform better learning and decision-making at all levels, while also incorporating local actors and needs as well as bridging theory and practice. | https://bep.carterschool.gmu.edu/evidence-based-peacemaking-what-we-need-to-know-what-we-need-to-share-what-we-need-to-learn/ | Worldwide |
| DME for Peace Website | Search for Common Ground | Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation Data | DME for Peace was created to provide professionals in the peacebuilding, development and humanitarian sectors with a platform to share tools, methodologies and findings among the community to help them identify and demonstrate what works, what does not and why. DME for Peace is a consortium and network of practitioners, evaluators and academics that share best and emerging practices on how to design, monitor and evaluate peacebuilding programs. The site has more than 1,000 resources focused on design, monitoring and evaluation that are shared and posted by the community in order to promote greater collaboration and transparency as well as increase the effectiveness of the peacebuilding field. | https://www.dmeforpeace.org/ | Worldwide |
| Eirene Peacebuilding Database | Alliance for Peacebuilding | Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation Data | The Eirene Peacebuilding Database® is the culmination of nearly two years of work to search, catalogue, curate, and share peacebuilding key indicators that will help you all better assess your work and measure impact. It puts forward program approaches, indicators, and measures currently being used in peacebuilding across seven program areas. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/eirene-peacebuilding-database | Worldwide |
| Rapid Assessment of Conflict Prevention | Christopher Cramer, Jonathan Goodhand, Robert Morris, Helena Pérez-Niño, Benjamin Petrini and Joshua Rogers | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Peace Processes, Conflict Prevention | This Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) has found that there is only a weak body of evidence published between 2010 and 2015 on conflict prevention and violence mitigation: there is no medium- to large-scale body of evidence on specific interventions with clear findings on ‘what works’ grounded in moderate or high quality research (as assessed in terms of the principles and indicators of good evidence adopted in the REA). While there is only a limited extent to which the search uncovered ‘what works’, there were some clear signals about ‘what doesn’t work’. 27 studies had clear findings that interventions had been ‘ineffective’ and six of these were high quality studies. The best of these studies highlighted the dangers of ignoring political drivers of conflict, the need to consider the distortionary effects of different aid modalities, and the specific design features that may render some forms of intervention (e.g. CDD) more vulnerable to attack than others. The REA suggests that there remains a large gap between the demand for evidence by policymakers/practitioners and the supply of research by researchers and evaluators in the field of conflict prevention and mitigation. The stubbornness of this gap raises questions about how policymakers can help researchers to overcome barriers to supply and provide incentives for improving the body of evidence about what works. | https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/58245e85ed915d7ad500001a/effectiveness-conflict-prevention-interventions1.pdf | Worldwide |
| Reconciliation in Practice | Kelly McKone | Reconciliation, Peace Processes: Strategies, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | Reconciliation plays a key role in building sustainable peace after mass violence which requires individual and collective work along the lines of identity. Through a deeper understanding of reconciliation, its definitions, and its practices on the ground, a clearer path can bring forth an effective analysis of coordinated efforts by individuals, non-governmental organizations, and governments. It is key to observe different reconciliation efforts and approaches, to unfold various projects’ intervention strategies, indicators to measure efficacy, evaluations, and transference of information. The report follows four stages: discussion of research methodologies used for information gathering and analysis; then it presents and evaluates the ten distinct, albeit overlapping, areas of practice in the field; the results are then presented according to the measures at the individual, community, or government level; lastly, gaps in the practice and evaluation of reconciliation are discussed and recommendations for future research are expressed. This research is a base to inform further questions regarding reconciliation projects and methods. Overall, practices and intervention strategies of reconciliation are looked upon, as well as the operationalization of the definition of reconciliation and associated terms, weak and strong indicators used at different levels, and evaluation tools and what it involves to the stakeholders. | https://www.usip.org/publications/2015/08/reconciliation-practice | Worldwide |
| INFORME FINAL EVALUACIÓN DEL PROGRAMA CONJUNTO DE PAZ PARA GENERACIÓN POST CONFLICTO | Peacekeeping, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Conflict Prevention | This final report evaluates the first experience of implementation of the program of Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) for the post-conflict generation, executed in El Salvador. It was established in 2006 as a flexible tool to consolidate peace, supporting the broader peace objectives of the United Nations in countries at risk of falling back into conflict. This report covers 18 months of the first PBF-approved intervention to support the peacekeeping agenda and the achievement of a “second generation of peace agreements”. The evaluation of the program has the main purpose of learning. The evaluation of the Joint Peace Program for the Post-Conflict Generation provides evidence about the planned and unplanned results achieved, what has worked and what has not, and why. Likewise, the evaluation illustrates lessons learned, as well as the good practices that have been generated through the implementation of the Program, which can be taken up and implemented by the agencies and their partners and participants. The evaluation has set the following main objective: Examine how and to what extent the Joint Peace Program for the Post-Conflict Generation has contributed to the strengthening and consolidation of care and protection mechanisms for people affected by different manifestations of violence. In this sense, to give an accurate response to the defined needs, the objective is complemented with the definition of the evaluation criteria, for which the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of the intervention of the Program concerning the design and results achieved, as well as the unintended results, identifying possible negative and positive consequences derived from the intervention. Further, The Joint Peace Program for the Post-Conflict Generation implemented contains a framework of results made up of three major results, namely: Result 1. Strengthened institutional mechanisms for protection and attention to victims, Result 2. The strengthen of institutional mechanisms for care and reintegration of the returned migrant population, Result 3. Increase institutional capacities for the fulfillment of internal and external control functions of Security and Justice institutions. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/informe_final_de_la_evaluacion_programa_conjunto_de_paz_para_generacion_post_conflicto.pdf | El Salvador | |
| Youth, Peace and Security: A Programming Handbook | Tammy Smith | Youth, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Inclusive Peacebuilding | This handbook seeks to contribute to the operational readiness and capacity of United Nations practitioners to implement the youth, peace and security (YPS) agenda. The handbook is intended to be used by country, regional and global teams in the United Nations system, but it can also provide insights and guidance to field practitioners beyond the United Nations, including other international or regional organizations, national counterparts, youth-led and youth-focused organizations, movements and networks, and peacebuilding organizations. It priorities youth-inclusive and youth-sensitive peace and security programming, as a core element of more sustainable and long-lasting peacebuilding efforts. The handbook offers strategic guidance and practical advice on its operational implementation: directions to ensure meaningful youth participation; tools and operational steps for undertaking a youth-sensitive and youth-inclusive conflict analysis; approaches for developing YPS strategic priorities and theories of change; the formulation of YPS outcome statements and indicators; guidance for monitoring YPS projects; exploration on how to evaluate the impact – and not just direct outputs and outcomes – of YPS programming and meaningful youth inclusion; and finally, proposes a series of YPS programming entry points, illustrated by concrete project examples. The handbook is a tool to successfully carry out projects and programmes that are informed by a full understanding of how young people experience and participate in their societies and their interaction with peace and security matters. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/yps_programming_handbook.pdf | Worldwide |
| A More Equitable Society: Promoting Social Cohesion and Diversity in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Dialogue for the Future II) | Alida Vračić, Aida Vežić, Marcus Cox | Dialogue, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Problem-Solving Workshop | This is a final evaluation of the joint project, “A More Equitable Society: Promoting Social Cohesion and Diversity in BiH (Dialogue for the Future II)” (DFF 2). The project was under the auspices of the BiH Presidency and funded with a $2 million grant from the UN Secretary- General’s Peacebuilding Fund. It was managed jointly by three UN agencies, UNICEF, UNDP, and UNESCO, and ran from January 2018 to December 2019. A predecessor project (DFF 1) had been implemented between 2014 and 2016. The DFF 2 joint project sought to promote dialogue and joint problem-solving among different groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) at local and state levels, to promote collaboration, trust and social cohesion. It had a focus on the youth, women’s organizations, and marginalized groups. It consisted of capacity building for civil society representatives, establishing dialogue platforms, a small grants facility for projects that promoted social cohesion, and a public information campaign and other media-related activities. The evaluation was undertaken over three months, beginning with an inception visit to UN offices in Sarajevo in January 2020 and with six days of fieldwork in February 2020. The evaluation finds that the project was highly relevant to the challenges facing BiH, and in particular to the circumstances of a post-war generation that has grown up with entrenched ethnic divisions. The design sought to build linkages and cooperation across groups through dialogue on social cohesion. However, some of the ambitious sets of outcome targets were not realistic. This evaluation ends by providing several recommendations for the UN’s future peacebuilding work and project design. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/dff_2_bih_final_evaluation_report_-_may_2020.pdf | Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Evaluation of Sida’s Support to Peacebuilding in Conflict and Post-Conflict Contexts | Erik Bryld, Julian Brett, Nadia Masri-Pedersen, Cécile Collin | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Conflict Prevention, Human Rights | This report presents a synthesis of the findings from the evaluation of Sida’s support to peacebuilding in conflict and post-conflict contexts since the early 1990s. It has been commissioned by Sida and undertaken by Tana Copenhagen. The evaluation assesses Sida’s approach and support to peacebuilding at the strategic level and seeks to identify what has worked well and what has worked less well. To do so, it draws from four country evaluations of Sida’s support to peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Guatemala, Rwanda and Somalia. The evaluation finds that Sida’s support has been relevant to the general context in the four countries. While Sida has played an important role in supporting processes that have contributed to positive change and has managed to identify and utilise opportunities to support peacebuilding, underlying conflict factors remain and continue to undermine sustainable peace. The alignment of Swedish strategies and underlying Sida documentation to specific peacebuilding needs has been weak because, with some exceptions, it has failed to target sufficiently the key root causes of conflict. The report includes recommendations to strengthen Sida’s peacebuilding engagement. | https://cdn.sida.se/publications/files/sida62210en-evaluation-of-sidas-support-to-peacebuilding-in-conflict-and-post-conflict-contexts-synthesis-report.pdf | Worldwide |
| Assessing Progress on the Road to Peace: Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating Conflict Prevention | Goele Scheers | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Conflict Prevention, Citizen Action | This paper evolved out of the experiences of GPPAC in setting up a planning, monitoring and evaluation system. During this process, discussions about monitoring and evaluation took place within the network. These discussions revealed that many of the civil society organisations are facing challenges in monitoring and evaluating conflict prevention activities; most of them are still looking for effective tools and methods to assess the results of their work. | https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/AssessingProgressontheRoadtoPeace_ECCP2008.pdf | Worldwide |
| Early Warning / Early Response Mechanisms in Northern Nigeria | Horacio R. Trujillo | Early Warning, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Citizen Action | This report presents the summative findings of the quasi-experimental evaluation of SFCG’s project to strengthen mechanisms for Early Warning and Early Response in the Nigerian states of Adamawa and Borno. The project encompassed a number of SFCG initiatives to convene and train community leaders to engage in dialogue processes at the local and state levels (Community Security Architecture Dialogues (CSADs) and Peace Architecture Dialogues (PADs), respectively) in order to promote increased collaboration among community members, civil society organizations and government agencies and improved capacity of and greater confidence in governmental and nongovernmental security structures in insecure areas. The aspiration of the project was to allow these communities to benefit from early warning of and early response to potential violence in order to effectively mitigate these threats. Among the most notable effects of the project, which developed later in its implementation but nonetheless demonstrates significant sustainability, is the advancement of the role of women in these societies more broadly. Among the lessons to be learned from the project and accompanying recommendations, a primary one is that while this evaluation has been able to collect various evidence to suggest that the project has been effective – the assessment of similar projects can be much stronger if attention is given to evaluation at the time of design of the projects | https://www.sfcg.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Final_Evaluation_Early_Warning_Early_Response_Mechanisms_in_Northern_Nigeria_October_2019.pdf | Nigeria |
| Reconciliation For Peace In South Sudan | USAID | Reconciliation, Locally-led Peacemaking: Interreligious, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | Reconciliation for Peace in South Sudan (RfPSS) aimed to support the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC) and its ecumenical partners in addressing communal conflicts and maintaining peace through reconciliation activities, while also strengthening grassroots constituencies and faith-based structures connected to the SSCC to undertake peacebuilding and reconciliation activities. The geographic focus of the project covered the former Lakes, Jonglei and Western Equatoria states, as well as Juba County. The goal of the project was to build a more peaceful, prosperous and reconciled South Sudan, based on inclusive citizen engagement at all levels, attention to past wrongs and the implementation of a just and comprehensive peace accord. While the project recorded some achievements, particularly around increasing organizational coherence and formalizing systems within the SSCC, several key challenges negatively affect the overall impact. In particular, the evaluation highlights weaknesses with local ownership and the quality of the partnership between Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the SSCC; problems with attribution and overlap in terms of RfPSS and other donor-funded initiatives in operation; flaws in the design logic and project assumptions; and an absence of coherent approaches to government engagement. | https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00TNMW.pdf | South Sudan |
| Data For Peacebuilding And Prevention Ecosystem Mapping The State Of Play And The Path To Creating A Community Of Practice | Branka Panic | Digital Security, Technology, Private Sector and Peacebuilding | In 2019 and 2020, the Center on International Cooperation convened researchers and practitioners for a series of workshops on Data for Peace and Security highlighting practical applications of these new approaches in the peacebuilding field. This report, launched at the first virtual dialogue, lays out the state of the field and provides recommendations on how best to grow the field effectively. The report maps and analyzes the existing global ecosystem in the field of data for peace and prevention. It highlights multiple examples of relevant initiatives throughout the world utilizing big data, data visualization, AI, ML, image recognition, and social media listening. It also discusses technical challenges impacting all actors, such as the lack of data or lack of high-quality data, lack of access due to security reasons, and data colonialism, as well as the ethical considerations brought on by exponential technologies (security, accessibility, transparency, safety, trust, bias, and justice), and some specific challenges for data-driven approaches to peacebuilding. | https://cic.nyu.edu/publications/data-peacebuilding-and-prevention-ecosystem-mapping-state-play-and-path-creating | Worldwide |
| Responsible Ingo Transitions And Locally Led Development: Findings From A Global Online Consultation | Aji Ceesay, Dimitri Kotsiras | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), | A key component of working towards locally led development is to enable responsible partnership transition processes. This is especially crucial in the aid sector where donor priorities regularly shift, and contexts are ever-changing, which has led to a greater need to sustain impact and ensure local actors’ sustainability. However, a significant gap that has emerged to support international actors to effectively leave contexts, end programs, or transform organizational structures is the lack of knowledge around best practices and practical examples of responsible partnership transitions. As the international development sector continues to explore practical ways to work towards locally led approaches, responsible partnership transitions remain a key part of this process. Poor partnership transitions obstruct the road to sustainable development. In these instances, not only are local actors left to pick up the pieces without the necessary tools and resources to continue the work, but any progress from previous work may be lost. International actors need to effectively plan their partnership transitions, and also make sure that these processes are locally led. However, challenges remain in achieving fully locally led partnership transitions, transitions, including how they are defined de and communicated, communicated, as well as what approach is taken and how they are implemented. Other challenges include the abrupt withdrawal of INGOs and funding from partnerships, the exclusion of key stakeholders in transition planning and processes, wider power imbalances in the international development sector and a lack of support for local actors’ capacity and sustainability. | https://www.stoppingassuccess.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/P4D-Consultation-Report_Final.pdf | Worldwide |
| Integrating masculinities in peacebuilding: shifting harmful norms and transforming relationships | Siad Darwish, Sophia Close | Gender, Violence Prevention, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | The integration of gender into peacebuilding programmes is still mostly synonymous with the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. And while women’s meaningful inclusion and participation in peace processes is essential to building sustainable peace, women’s rights organisations and some peacebuilding organisations have long realised that the connection between masculinities, violence and militarism also needs to be addressed to reduce violence in all its forms. This practice paper is based on a review of Conciliation Resources’ work on masculinities and peacebuilding over the last three years, with a focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kashmir, Nigeria and the Pacific Region. This paper reflects on the challenges experienced when we integrated a focus on masculinities into our gender, peace and security programming, and offers some practical lessons for peacebuilders to address militarised and violent masculinities. | https://www.c-r.org/learning-hub/integrating-masculinities-peacebuilding-shifting-harmful-norms-and-transforming | Worldwide |
| From words to actions: The experience of the UN Special Political Missions in Colombia on women, peace and security. | Marcie Mersky | Gender, Peace Processes: Implementation, Monitoring/Verification: United Nations | The Colombian peace process and its 2016 Final Peace Agreement are widely held to be an international model for gender-sensitivity and the inclusion of women’s rights. The United Nations (UN) played an active role, along with others in the international community, first in encouraging and advising key actors to advance the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda during the peace negotiations (2012-2016) and then through the establishment of two consecutive special political missions (SPMs) in Colombia to verify specific provisions of the Agreement. In its efforts to implement the WPS agenda in Colombia, the UN worked in close cooperation with the authorities and former guerrillas, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), as well as with civil society and international stakeholders. | https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/WPS%20Study%20Lessons%20Learned.pdf | Colombia |
| Final Evaluation: Community Violence Reduction Pilot Project In Paoua (CAR) | Transition International | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Violence Prevention, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | The Community Violence Reduction (CVR) pilot project is targeting 10 hotspot locations in the northwestern part of the Central African Republic (CAR), the sous prefecture of Paoua, where there is a strong presence of Anti-Balaka and ‘self-defence’ groups and community violence is particularly severe. Implemented by IOM, supervised by MINUSCA-DDR, and supported by the United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), the project provides support to armed group elements not eligible for the national DDR programme, as well as vulnerable people in the concerned communities. The project’s general objective is to improve security at the local level, through the economic and social reinsertion of violence-prone armed groups’ elements non-eligible for the national DDR programme and community dialogue mechanisms in hotspots areas playing a stronger and positive role in the prevention of violence at the local level. The most important conclusion is that indeed the project has had a stabilising effect on the 10 targeted communities, with increased security, reduced violent incidents and perceived increase in peaceful coexistence. Fewer arms circulate in the communities and a large percentage of the armed people not eligible for DDR have reduced violent and illegal activities and started to engage in productive activities. People also express that due to this improved security they have restarted farming. Further, the roads repaired have a direct impact on mobility and related trade and commerce, which has led to an overall improvement of the economic situation of the community as a whole. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/car_june_2017_-_evaluation_of_community_violence_reduction_project.pdf | Central African Republic |
| Final Evaluation of the PBF project “Overcoming barriers to strengthen the voices of all women in Rakhine State for social cohesion and peace” | Joanna Brooks, Aye Myat Thu | Gender, Rule of Law, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | This evaluation is a final evaluation of the UNDP and UNFPA implemented Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) project in Rakhine State and covers the full implementation period of the project from April 2018 – September 2019. The evaluation team found that despite the overly ambitious design of the project given the local context, and short 18-month implementation period, the project managed to achieve some impressive results and successfully addressed the identified drivers of conflict - a lack of women’s empowerment and access to justice. It contributed to the peacebuilding process by working with different communities and had considerable catalytic impact on both UNDP and UNFPA’s programming. Key results were identified in terms of expanding the capacities of the project’s implementing partners and empowering women and girls as well as boys and men in raising their awareness on gender-based violence (GBV) and strengthening their access to justice through the provision of legal advice, counselling and representation | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/2020_04_09_rakhine_rol_final_evaluation.pdf | Myanmar |
| The World Food Programme’s Contribution to Improving the Prospects for Peace in Lebanon | Kristina Tschunkert | Corruption and Conflict, Economics and Conflict, Internally Displaced Persons/Refugees | This report aims to provide a better understanding of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) contribution to improving the prospects for peace in Lebanon. Specifically, the report investigates where and how WFP’s cash-based transfer (CBT) interventions in the country make potential peace contributions and looks at how these contributions could be further developed. The findings are based on a review of programme documents, in-depth interviews with a range of stakeholders and field visits to project sites in Lebanon in 2021. The findings suggest that WFP’s CBT interventions can—and do—positively contribute to improving the prospects for peace in Lebanon. However, the conflict and peacebuilding environment in Lebanon is extremely complex and rife with uncertainties. With this in mind, the report emphasizes the importance of taking conflict sensitivity concerns into account and provides 13 recommendations on how WFP’s contribution to peace in Lebanon could be enhanced. | https://www.sipri.org/publications/2021/other-publications/world-food-programmes-contribution-improving-prospects-peace-lebanon | Lebanon |
| Evaluating Peacebuilding Activities in Settings of Conflict and Fragility | OECD | Fragility, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Conflict Prevention | Evaluating Peacebuilding Activities in Settings of Conflict and Fragility was developed by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to help improve program design and management and strengthen the use of evaluation in order to enhance the quality of conflict prevention and peacebuilding work. It seeks to guide policy makers and country partners, field and program officers, evaluators and other stakeholders engaged in settings of conflict and fragility by supporting a better, shared understanding of the role and utility of evaluations, outlining key dimensions of planning for them, setting them up, and carrying them out. The central principles and concepts include conflict sensitivity and the importance of understanding and testing underlying theories about what is being done and why. The report describes the convergence of the concepts of peacebuilding, statebuilding and conflict prevention and addresses the emerging international consensus that such contexts require specific, adapted approaches. It considers the principles for engagement in fragile states as the backdrop to evaluating such engagement and outlines the preconditions for evaluability, which should be handled by those designing and managing such programs. Such conditions include setting clear, measurable objectives for peace-related activities, collecting baselines data and monitoring activities. The report analyzes challenges of evaluating in fragile, conflicted-affected societies, the importance of understanding the conflict context; conflict sensitivity and theories of change; and examples of evaluations at work. The report concludes that actionable recommendations based on the conclusions should be presented as opportunities for learning and commissioning institutions should ensure systematic response to the findings. Such an approach will increase receptivity and the chances that findings will be fed back into program design and decision-making. In these ways, more and better evaluation will contribute to identifying strategies and programs that progress towards “peace writ large”. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12883?show=full | Worldwide |
| People’s Perceptions of Peace Accord Implementation in Colombia: Comparing Attitudes among the Conflict-Affected Population | Helga Malmin Binningsbø | Peace Agreement, Inclusive Peacebuilding, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | November 2021 marked the fifth year of the 15-year implementation period of the Colombian peace accord. The ambitious accord aims to end violence, reduce poverty, and increase the well-being of the rural population through the establishment of 16 regions targeted for peace accord implementation (Programas de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial, PDETs). To succeed, peacebuilding in Colombia must bring tangible benefits to the people in the PDETs and ensure their continued support. This policy brief presents preliminary results from two survey waves of 12,000 respondents in the PDETs, examining whether the most conflict-affected populations think the implementation of the accord is achieving its aims. | https://www.prio.org/publications/12879 | Colombia |
| Beyond consultations: a tool for meaningfully engaging with women in fragile and conflict-affected states | SaferWorld | Gender, Inclusive Peacebuilding, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | The Beyond Consultations tool is designed to support actors to move towards more meaningful engagement with women in fragile and conflict-affected states , in response to feedback that many consultation exercises tend to be extractive, tokenistic and disempowering. The tool enables a self-assessment of current consultation practices and provides a best practice framework to ensure that women and women’s organisations are fully engaged in decision-making processes. It should be used as early as possible during the planning and design phase of engagement, and regularly revisited throughout the participation activity and its evaluation. | https://beyondconsultations.org/ | Worldwide |
| The Role of Development Aid in Conflict Transformation: Facilitating Empowerment Processes and Community Building | Marcie Mersky | Economics and Conflict, Humanitarian Engagement, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | This article examines both the theoretical assumptions and expectations, as well as the practical experiences, of empowerment approaches within the field of development aid, with a particular focus their potential for conflict transformation. The authors build upon the recent discourse in development policy that discusses the extent to which development cooperation can effectively contribute towards crisis prevention and conflict transformation. It attempts to analyze and build from three inter-related approaches: The do-no-harm approach which primarily aims to avoid doing more harm than good, and is vitally concerned with the unintended negative impacts of development aid, which too often tends to aggravate conflict rather than contribute to its resolution; the local capacities for peace approach which seeks to identify potential entry points for conflict transformation through development aid, and recommends that external donor agencies should focus on supporting local capacities for peace; and the discourse on peace and conflict impact assessment approach which stresses the need for a thorough analysis of the conflict context. The article examines these approaches through the practical experience of traditional relief and development projects working on complex emergencies in the field of community development. The authors explore the nexus between conflict transformation on the one hand and participatory and empowerment approaches on the other. They critically assess the potential of common empowerment approaches within community building not only to avoid doing harm but also to make a substantive contribution to conflict transformation at the local level. The empirical base of the chapter lies within participatory research and in the experiences of bilateral and multilateral development cooperation in the war-torn areas of Sri Lanka. The authors explore some common participatory and empowerment approaches within the field of community development, as well as constraints, dilemmas and ambivalences for the facilitation of empowerment processes through development aid within complex emergencies. The authors conclude with future prospects on the potentials, constraints and ambivalence of empowerment approaches and recommend a more political role for development aid in complex emergencies as it engages in more inclusive community building through processes of empowerment and recognition. | http://hdl.handle.net/1920/12900 | Sri Lanka |
| “Frameworkers” and “Circlers” – Exploring Assumptions in Impact Assessment | Reina C. Neufeldt | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Humanitarian Engagement, Peacebuilding | This chapter explores two contending constituencies and their arguments about why and how to identify impact in peacebuilding initiatives in practice. The two constituencies, “frameworkers” and “circlers”, involve sets of people who blend across the lines of development and conflict transformation work and possess very different arguments about how to conceptualize and operationalize issues of impact and change in program design, monitoring and evaluation. The differences matter in a practical sense for workers in international and national NGOs because their views often clash during program design, monitoring and evaluation processes, and leave both sides dissatisfied. These differences also hinder people’s ability to talk clearly about impact and change, what matters, how people “know what they know” about impact and change and, therefore, how they do their peacebuilding work. The premise of the chapter is that by unmasking the conceptual debates, peacebuilders can improve their ability to speak about and achieve effectiveness and impact. After outlining the two basic constituencies, frameworkers and circlers, and a review of the current status of peacebuilding monitoring and evaluation, the author examines how tensions between the two approaches provide insights into the underlying issues that need to be addressed. The chapter concludes with examples of ways that peacebuilding or other social change-orientated programs have adapted to bridge the positions in practice and identify practices that can strengthen particular areas that are currently under-developed and can benefit program design. | http://hdl.handle.net/1920/12902 | Worldwide |