Case Studies

  The PCTR is a five-day intensive program which provides experts, practitioners and policy makers with a forum for reflection and targeted, relevant professional development in a dynamic and stimulating environment.  Given the issues it addresses, it is also relevant for those working in political, gender, security, human rights, development, and humanitarian fields, donors, and diplomats, working in areas affected or threatened by war and armed conflict or in post-war situations. ...

The final scope of this case study is to monitor the gradual change in perception, behavior and approach towards conflict resolution methods, their application and the level of engagement between the school associations and their respective local communities. ...

One of the main focus of this case study is to observe the participation of women amongst the Angolan School Parliament as well as their active interaction within it. ...

The goal of this case study is to analyse in depth the impact of Search for Common Ground's capacity building trainings on new emerging practices of Zanzibar radio stations. ...

We are interested in receiving papers which critically examine the politics, ethics and methods of conducting evaluations and research that asks evaluative questions in violently divided societies.  This call is open to papers which critical examine any kind of evaluation, any kind of programme, project, or intervention, in any sector, as long as it is set with the context of a violently divided society – be it divided by militarized violence, social violence, structural violence, and so on.  We are interested in papers which are sensitive to, or which focus on, the ways in which the violent context affects evaluation, and the ways in which evaluation affects violent conflicts (constructively or destructively).  A short list of possible issues might include: methodological limitations or possibilities of evaluation approaches in VDS; ethical challenges and dilemmas; competing ethical systems; Insider-Outsider issues; tensions around questions of integrity; competing interests; antithetical outcomes; security and safety; contested realities; power imbalances; gendered dimensions; parasitic development and evaluation interventions; data manipulation; multiple and competing accountabilities; cash-transaction relationships; epistemic colonialism, and paradigm clashes -- to name but a few. ...

In this document, Davies provides an overview of themes, discussion, and lessons learned from last month's Seminar. The document is organized by the following headings: Principles and lessons for performance oriented reform Highlights from recent literature on results-based budgeting Case study summaries and highlights from the practice review on results based budgeting and results based management in multilateral organisations Success factors for results based budgeting Implications for a Process Approach to Policy ...

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 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....

Dear Colleagues/Experts,       The International Peace and Development Training Center (IPDTC) is inviting expert professionals, policy makers and practitioners for its upcoming Autumn Programs. The programmes are designed for UN agencies, governments and national and international organisations....

This report covers a study commissioned by DFID entitled ‘Broadening the Range of Designs and Methods for Impact Evaluations’. Impact Evaluation (IE) aims to demonstrate that development programmes lead todevelopment results, that the intervention as cause has an effect....

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....

This is a collection of narratives that serve to illustrate some not-so-obvious lessons from our ongoing storytelling pilot project in Kenya. We gathered a large body of community stories that revealed what people in various communities believed they needed, what services they were getting, and what they would like to see happen in the future....

This collection introduces the Worldwork model and three case studies of some of its possible applications. The first chapter provides an overview of the model, describing its underlying methodology, perspective, and conceptual framework. The following chapter presents highlights of the theoretical concepts, and elucidates some of the terms and concepts that are used in the subsequent case studies....

A product of the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP) and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the day-long Evidence Summit, which was held in December 2011 at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, and this report were made possible in part thanks to support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and USIP....

This external evaluation of PeacePlayers International's local program in Cyprus looks at the organization both from the perspective of its outcomes and the management structures in place to sustain those outcomes. We've posted the Executive Summary here and can provide more information to anyone who's interested. We're particularly proud of how we've grown since this evaluation (completed in 2009-2010), including a full transition to local leadership, an overhaul of our "PD" position and a new focus on more intensive programming for our youth. ...

The Institute for Conflict Research, based in Belfast, has performed independent evaluations of PeacePlayers International's local program for several years. In this, their most recent evaluation, they examine the way the organization's programming has evolved over the years to offer a more comprehensive approach to peacebuilding and youth development in Belfast. ...

  The struggle against poverty is political and economic, but it is also a cultural struggle. Poverty is centrally related to voice, participation in public discourse, and access to the public sphere. This perspective requires a new approach from policymakers who need to understand poverty as a matter not only of economic factors, but also of voice and agency....

This guide introduces some of the best recent literature on the role of communication in governance. It highlights the major critical debates surrounding the relationship between communication, government accountability and responsiveness, and state-society relations in developing countries....

The importance of social accountability for development effectiveness has increasingly been acknowledged in recent years. This Trainer’s Guide focuses on the role of communication techniques and approaches for generating genuine citizen demand for accountability. Communication campaigns can motivate and activate citizens to stand up and hold their government accountable....

The Toolkit is intended as a simple and practical guide, providing key steps for preventing conflict through constructive community engagement in exploration. The Toolkit draws from the tools of the collaborating partners, including the Corporate Engagement Program Framework, PDAC’s e3Plus, and World Vision’s Making Sense of Turbulent Contexts....