Annex
MAIN FINDINGS
FROM REFLECTING
ON PEACE
PRACTICE, COLLABORATIVE
FOR DEVELOPMENT
ACTION HTTP://WWW.CDAINC.COM/RPP/CRITERIA—OF—EFFECTIVENESS.PHP
CRITERIA OF
EFFECTIVENESS
Challenges of Assessing Effectiveness
Assessing contribution to "peace writ large"
is difficult. Most peacebuilding programs are discrete efforts
aimed at affecting one (often small) piece of the puzzle, and
no one project can do everything. Outcomes are also difficult
to assess. Attribution of social impacts to particular peace activities
is even more difficult. As one practitioner noted: "Peace
requires that many people work at many levels in different ways,
and, with all this work, you cannot tell who is responsible for
what." Moreover, when the goal of "just and sustainable
peace" is so grand, and progress toward it immeasurable in
its multitude of small steps, it is difficult to know whether
or when a particular program outcome is significant for peace.
Yet every program that does not fully accomplish
the lofty goals of ending violent conflict or building sustainable
just structures is not by definition ineffective. Are there criteria
for determining which programs have a more significant impact?
Against what benchmarks can agencies identify whether their programs
have contributed to progress? How can agencies judge, as they
are planning their programs, which of the wide range of possible
approaches will have more significant impacts on the conflict?
Program Effectiveness vs Peace Effectiveness
RPP's review of experience identified two levels
of effectiveness:
1. Program Level. At this level, agencies
assess the effectiveness of a specific activity (eg, peace education,
dialogue workshop, income generation project) is achieving its
intended goals. Program evaluation at this level is often done
regularly by agencies, even if not always systematically.
2. Peace Writ Large Level. The effectiveness
question at this level asks whether, in meeting specific program
goals, an agency makes a contribution to the bigger picture. This
requires assessing changes in the overall environment that may
or may not result from the project or program. RPP found that
this question—whether the program results represented a
significant contribution to peace—was rarely asked. Rather,
the connection was assumed. Nonetheless, practitioners involved
in the RPP process affirmed that they do want to understand the
connection between their peace programs and ultimate impacts,
and that they are dissatisfied with the way projects are currently
assessed.
Five Criteria of Effectiveness
From analysis of the cases and practitioner
reflection on their own experiences, the RPP process produced
five criteria of effectiveness by which to assess, across a broad
range of contexts and programming approaches, whether a program
is (or is not) having meaningful impact at the level of peace
writ large. These criteria can be used in program planning to
ensure that specific program goals are linked to the large and
long-term goal of "peace writ large." They can be used
during program implementation to reflect on effectiveness and
guide mid-course changes, and as a basis for evaluation after
the program has been completed.
1. The effort contributes to stopping a
key driving factor of the war or conflict. The program addresses
people, issues, and dynamics that are key contributors to ongoing
conflict.
2. The effort contributes to a momentum
for peace by causing participants and communities to develop their
own peace initiatives in relation to critical elements of context
analysis: what needs to be stopped, reinforcement of areas where
people continue to interact in non-war ways, and regional and
international dimensions of the conflict. This criterion underlines
the importance of "ownership" and sustainability of
action and efforts to bring about peace, as well as creating momentum
for peace, involving more people.
3. The effort results in the creation or
reform of political institutions to handle grievances in situations
where such grievances do, genuinely, drive the conflict. Peace
practice is effective if it develops or supports institutions
or mechanisms to address the specific inequalities, injustices
and other grievances that cause and fuel a conflict. This criterion
underlines the importance of moving beyond impacts at the individual
or personal (attitudinal, material or emotional) level to the
socio-political level. This criterion must be applied in conjunction
with a context analysis identifying what the conflict is NOT about
and what needs to be stopped. To reform or build institutions
that are unrelated to the actual drivers of a specific conflict
would be ineffective.
4. The effort prompts people increasingly
to resist violence and provocations to violence. One way of addressing
and including Key People who promote and continue tensions (eg,
warlords, spoilers) is to help More People develop the ability
to resist the manipulation and provocations of these negative
key people.
5. The effort results in an increase in
people's security and in their sense of security. This criterion
reflects positive changes both at the socio-political level (in
people's public lives) and at the individual/personal level as
people gain a sense of security.
These criteria can best be thought of as intermediate-level
benchmarks of success applicable to the broad range of peace work
being done.
The Criteria are Additive
The experience gathered through RPP suggests
that the effectiveness criteria are additive. Peace efforts that
meet more of them are more effective than those that accomplish
only one of the changes.
Four Additional Questions
To assess the significance of a particular change
in a given context, three additional, interconnected elements
must be considered:
6. Is the change from this effort fast enough?
Sooner is always better than later in ending violence and injustice.
One should always ask whether this effort is more likely to gain
results faster than anything else we might do, or whether there
are other ways to work that could produce results sooner.
7. Is the change from this effort likely
to be sustained? Short-term gains are undermined over time in
conflicts. Peace practitioners should hold themselves accountable
to standards that look beyond the end of a particular project
or programme.
8. Is the change from this effort big enough?
If violence is occurring at a national scale, efforts to address
it at a very local scale will be valuable, but not as significant
as those efforts that affect the national scale. Peace practitioners
should always ask: is this effort likely to have the widest possible
effect we are capable of promoting, or is there something else
we might do that is more proportional to the actual conflict?
9. Are the linkages big or strong enough?
The stronger and more strategic the linkages efforts make between
levels, the more effective they will be vis-a"-vis "peace
writ large." Practitioners should ask: can we make stronger
or more strategic linkages between the individual and socio-political
levels, or between more and key people? Is there something more
we can do to address or take account of the regional, national
and international dimensions of the conflict?
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