Analysis

This CDA Working Paper series aims to share reflections, lessons learned, and practical support for practitioners who are undertaking their own program reviews and evaluations. Evaluability Assessment, the topic of this paper, is a form of program review well known in the evaluation world but neglected in the peacebuilding field....

This report, “Linking Program Design and Program Evaluation: A Challenging Task,” captures the findings of a meta-review of program evaluation reports conducted by American University’s Center for Peacebuilding and Development and Search for Common Ground....

Drawing on the findings of RPP regarding factors that contribute to effectiveness and impacts of peacebuilding, and on the experience of practitioners, this Working Paper offers an approach to reviewing program quality that addresses organizational needs for feedback, assessment and learning short of a formal evaluation.  In Section 2, this Working Paper offers some general introductory comments on evaluation in peacebuilding....

Recognising a need for better, tailored approaches to learning and accountability in conflict settings, the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) launched an initiative to develop guidance on evaluating conflict prevention and peacebuilding activities.  The objective of this process has been to help improve evaluation practice and thereby support the broader community of experts and implementing organisations to enhance the quality of conflict prevention and peacebuilding interventions....

The purpose of this module is to provide policy makers, operational planners and officers atfield level with background information and guidance on related but distinct sets of activities associated with disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) and security sector reform (SSR) ...

This 15-page article, published in the Africa Peace and Conflict Journal, shares Search for Common Ground's work using participatory theatre for peacebuilding in Rwanda, designed to help citizens and government leaders take ownership over the process of collaboratively negotiating land disputes....

This is the first guidance note in a four-part series of notes related to impact evaluation developed by InterAction with financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation. This first guidance note, Introduction to Impact Evaluation, provides an overview of impact evaluation, explaining how impact evaluation differs from – and complements – other types of evaluation, why impact evaluation should be done, when and by whom....

This report examines the extent to which RCTs have been used successfully to measure empowerment and accountability processes and programmes. Field experiments present immense opportunities, but the report cautions that they are more suited to measuring short-term results with short causal chains and less suitable for complex interventions....

In efforts to measure empowerment, do indicators mean what they are supposed to mean? Are the values they reflect appropriate? This paper examines the measurement of three dimensions of empowerment: resources (the conditions under which choices are made); agency (the process by which choices are made); and achievements (the outcomes of choices)....

Since the 1990s, internationally-supported peacebuilding interventions have become increasingly prominent. Activities focusing on rule of law and security institutions are a key component of this agenda. Despite increasing calls for more rigorous analysis of the impact of peacebuilding interventions, conceptual advances have been limited....

This article addresses the potential use of mixed methods approaches in quantitative impact evaluation. It provides examples of how such an approach as strengthened impact evaluation work of the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank. ...

Performance measurement is extensively and increasingly used to measure the performance of government programs (Mayne and Zapico-Goni 1997). In comparison with evaluation, which usually takes special one-time measures and extensive analysis of the data gathered, performance measurement is characterized by regular and often more straightforward measurement of aspects of a program's performance....

Realist evaluation is a species of theory-driven evaluation. Some of the differences between it and fellow members of the genus (programme theory evaluation, theories-of-change evaluation) will be noted in the course of the section. What should be stressed in the first instance, however, is the commonality....

This is a review of the concepts and common debates within ‘Theory of Change’ (ToC) material, resulting from a search and detailed analysis of available donor, agency and expert guidance documents. The review was undertaken as part of a Justice and Security Research Program2 (JSRP) and The Asia Foundation3 (TAF) collaborative project, and focuses on the field of international development....

We examine various evaluation approaches that could potentially be suitable for small n analysis and find that a number of them share a methodological core which could provide a basis for consensus. This common core involves the specification of a theory of change together with a number of further alternative causal hypotheses....

This report covers a study commissioned by DFID entitled 'Broadening the Range of Designs and Methods for Impact Evaluations.' Up to now most investment in IE has gone into a narrow range of mainly experimental and statistical methods and designs that according to the study's Terms of Reference, DFID has found are only applicable to a small proportion of their current programme portfolio....

Accountability and transparency initiatives have taken democratisation, governance, aid and development circles by storm since the turn of the century. Many actors involved with them – as donors, funders, programme managers, implementers and researchers – are now keen to know more about what these initiatives are achieving. This paper arises from a review of the impact and effectiveness of transparency and accountability initiatives which gathered and analysed existing evidence, discussed how it could be improved, and evaluated how impact and effectiveness could be enhanced....

This report presents key messages and findings from the People’s Peacemaking Perspectives (PPP) project. They are relevant not only to European Union (EU) actors working in or on conflict-affected and fragile states and the peacebuilding community, but to anyone who recognises the importance of conflict analysis and is striving to do – and use – it more effectively. ...

  Many bodies aim to mainstream gender, but few track how effective they are in doing so with monitoring and evaluation.  The mechanisms used to monitor and evaluate development programmes, projects and policies have so far been largely gender blind....

In recent years, the peacebuilding field made a commitment to improving its evaluation practices. From the newer Search for Common Ground evaluation database, to the established OECD-DAC evaluation guidelines, to the practical CDA Collaborative Learning Projects' Toolbox and Church and Rogers' Designing for Results, resourced for program design and implementation evaluation now exist....