This is the M&E Thursday Talk from Thursday, June 20th when Dr. Sukanya Podder, Senior Lecturer in Defence and Security Studies at King’s College London, led a discussion on “Reflexive Peacebuilding: Legacies, Institutional Learning, and Reflection.”
Over the last three decades, there has been an enormous expansion in energy and significant resources expended by international organizations, bilateral donors, and non-governmental organizations in the name of peacebuilding. Dr. Sukanya Podder discussed reflexive peacebuilding and how we still, however, have little idea if these resources are ‘well spent’ beyond a program-specific monitoring and evaluation of short-term outputs. And, how we are equally uncertain of the longer-term effects of peacebuilding interventions on various target populations, and what these mean for institutional learning and reflection. Participants were also asked to consider the concept of peacebuilding legacy, i.e. the long- term effects of peacebuilding interventions.