Evaluating Peace Initiatives “ How do we know we’re doing good?”

1. Evaluating Peace Initiatives“How do we know we’re doing good?” Group 13 Dana Strasberg Stephanie Sun Bourke Tillman Adam Tracey Alexandra Tse Emily Uhrig Andrea Valois

2. Special Report

3. Agenda • Introduction – Emily • Framework – Andrea & Alexandra • Methodology – Bourke • Indicators – Stephanie • Class Activity – Dana • Conclusion - Adam

4. Objectives • To understand the necessity and importance of evaluating peace initiatives. • To gain an understanding of the complexity and difficulties in evaluating peace initiatives. • To provide a framework and methodology in which to evaluate the effectiveness of peace initiatives.

5. Introduction: Evaluating Peace Work • Weak area of peace-building knowledge • Good intentions ≠ positive impacts • Never too early for evaluation • PtH evaluation is in its infancy

6. Evaluating Peace Programming: Collaborative for Development Action (CDA) “Reflecting on Peace Practice Project”

7. Two Levels of Effectiveness • The Program Level • Are the specific activities of our program achieving their intended goals? • The Peace Writ Large Level • In meeting our specific program goals, is our initiative contributing to the bigger picture?

8. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Peace Programming at the ‘Peace Writ Large’ Level

9. 5 Steps of the Process • The Goal (Where are we going?) • Analysis of Context (Where are we now?) • Program Planning/Design (What can we do to go from here to there?) • Implementation (How shall we do it?) • Outcomes (With what results?)

10. 1. Where are we going? – Evaluating the Goals of Peace Programming • To end violence and destructive conflict • To build a just, sustainable peace • The Question: What is our particular project doing to achieve these goals? • The Task: To link specific program goals to Peace Writ Large

11. Four Criteria for Assessing Effectiveness • Will our initiative cause participants and communities to develop their own initiatives for peace? • Will our initiative result in the creation or reform of political institutions to handle the grievances fuelling the conflict? • Will our initiative prompt people increasingly to resist violence and provocations to violence? • Will our initiative result in an increase in people’s security and in their sense of security?

12. 2. Where are we now? – Analyzing the Context • The Question: Why is there violence and destructive conflict? • What needs to be stopped and who will resist inside the context of conflict? • What and who need to be supported inside the context of conflict?

13. Analyzing the Context • What needs to be stopped and who will resist outside the conflict area? • What and who need to be supported outside the conflict area? • The Task: To identify the most pressing issues and identify areas of common ground as the basis for peacebuilding.

14. 3. What can we do to go from here to there? – Program Planning and Design • The Question: What shall we do to go from the current situation to the desired outcomes? • The Task: Consider program options to determine the best course of action, considering: • Personal/Individual Level vs. Socio/Political Level • More People vs. Key People

15. Program Planning and Design • The Benchmark: Which option will be most beneficial, considering: • Urgency of Change • Sustained Change • Proportionality of Change

16. 4. How shall we do it? – Program Implementation • The Question: How shall we work to do what we have planned? • The Task: To ensure that our styles and approaches are consistent with our goals, considering:

17. Program Implementation: Keeping the Means Consistent with the Ends Peace programming… • …is honest • …values life • …is reliable • …respects difference • …eschews violence and intimidation • …commits to justice as essential to peace • …honours that peace belongs to those who make it

18. Program Implementation: Negative Impacts • The Question: Are there any ways that our initiative may have a negative impact? • The Task: To anticipate and avoid negative impacts by asking whether any aspects of our program:

19. Negative Impacts • Intensify existing divisions • Increase danger for participants • Reinforce structural or direct violence • Divert resources from more productive peace initiatives • Increase cynicism and discouragement • Disempower local people

20. 5. With what results? – Evaluating the Outcomes of Peace Programming • The Question: Did we move things toward Peace Writ Large? • The Task: To link program outcomes to goals and to monitor weaknesses and strengths in our peace initiative

21. Methodology

22. Randomized Controlled Trial • Gold standard for performing a study • Participants randomly assigned to control and treatment groups • Indicators measured and compared in each group • 95% probability ensures significance of results

23. How a Randomized Controlled Trial Can Be Used to Evaluate a PtH Initiative • Three major adjustments need to be made: • Redefinition of control group • Different indicators • Changes in the way indicators are measured

24. Measuring Impact: Using Indicators to Evaluate

25. Don’t wait, evaluate! • Monitor impact from the start • Continuous, “round-the-clock” evaluation • e.g. Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA)

26. Quality versus Quantity • Qualitative indicators measure quality or relative degree • Expressed as a description • Quantitative indicators measure quantifiable values • Expressed as a number

27. Quality versus Quantity cont… • Quality: • The people are more involved. • Quantity: • Voter turnout is up by 50%.

28. Collection of Data • How is it done? • interviews • surveys • recording statistics • KEY: health practitioner is in the right place at the right time for data collection

29. Examples of Indicators • Health indicators • Rate of infection by communicable disease • Nutritional status • Psychological indicators • Prevalence of depression • Desire for vengeance

30. Examples of Indicators cont… • Security indicators • Inhumane prison conditions • Number of killings in violation of the rules of war

31. Examples of Indicators cont… • Social indicators • Freedom of thought • Degree of economic or employment discrimination • Political Indicators • Fair and free elections • Level of public political participation

32. Examples of Indicators cont… • Juridical Indicators • Equality under the law • Prosecution of war criminals

33. The “Situation” • Poor, unstable country. • One religion and one ethnicity. • Health standards deplorable • Government- • dictatorship • Civilians- • live in poverty and violence • poor education • satisfied with health care system • accept their way of life because never experienced a higher standard of living

34. The “Situation” cont… • Insurgents: • people from the country, against the government • do not want to continue this life • have not experienced a higher living standard, but feel they are being cheated out of opportunities • actively protest with violent acts targeting government buildings and organizations • actions affect both civilians and government

35. Class Activity • Class is divided into the government, the civilians and the insurgents • Each group will brainstorm what peace initiatives they would like to have implemented to help accomplish their own ideology of peace

36. Actions for Achieving Peace • Each group believes peace will occur if: • Civilians: • change/overthrow the dictatorship by nonviolent means • reduction of violence from insurgents • increased accessibility to education and health care • Government: removal of the rebels • Rebels: removal of the government

37. 4 Goals of Peace Projects • Causes participants and communities to develop their own initiatives for peace • Results in the creation or reform of political institutions to handle grievances that fuel the conflict • Increases resistance to violence • Increases peoples’ security

38. Challengesin Peace Evaluation • Self-evaluation: • often the same as peace evaluations • Contrasting outcomes: • Ending overt violence VS. advocating a more complete positive peace. • Program Level vs. Peace Writ Large: • more difficult to analyze long term effects

39. Challengesin Peace Evaluation cont… • Complex social impacts to peace efforts: • agency may claim responsibility for outcomes, causing unhelpful distortion of reality. • Credibility of reported impacts: • Impacts not easily categorized, ie. changed attitudes, values, relationships, etc. • Significance of the changes for Peace Writ Large: • Can the outcome of your program be contributed to greater peace?

40. Conclusion “All of the good peace work being done should be adding up to more than it is. The potential of these multiple efforts is not fully realized. Practitioners know that, so long as people continue to suffer the consequences of unresolved conflicts, there is urgency for everyone to do better…So, in spite of the real limitations and constraints, the question of effectiveness is high on the agenda of peace practitioners.” – Mary Anderson and Lara Olsen