Evaluation In Contexts Of Fragility Conflict And Violence

Two billion people live in countries where development outcomes are affected by fragility, conflict and violence. The World Bank estimates that by 2030, up to two-thirds of the global extreme poor will be living in fragile and conflict-affected situations, making it evident that without intensified action, global poverty goals will not be met. Evaluation - like development aid itself - can unintentionally exacerbate tensions in ways that negatively affect conflict-affected populations if care is not taken to develop and integrate conflict sensitivity into the evaluation's design and approaches. This book is a guide to designing, managing and conducting evaluations in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. Such contexts may present challenges for evaluation that, if not properly addressed or mitigated, can adversely affect the validity and results of the evaluation. Mitigating these challenges can entail significant effort, and can sometimes require redefining the direction, purpose or scope of the evaluation. This book is an initiative of IDEAS. It builds upon the knowledge and practical experience of evaluation professionals of various organizations and regions, thus showing a diversity of perspectives and experiences. Hur Hassnain provided overall leadership and management in writing and developing the book. The book's co-authors were Anupam Anand, Inga-Lill Aronsson, Sarah Davies, Gabrielle Duffy, Lauren Kelly, Wanda Krause, Keiko Kuji-Shikatani, Marco Lorenzoni, Rhiannon McHugh, Emma Rotondo, Wendy Rowe, Simona Somma, Melinda Sutherland and Serge Eric Yakeu. Reviews and Endorsements: - This book is both important and timely. Use the wisdom and insights in this book to enhance your work on behalf of all of us. Michael Quinn Patton, Utilization-Focused Evaluation & Blue Marble Evaluation - Many of the elements included in this book will have an immediate purpose in strengthening the work of my own evaluation function at the WFP. Andrea Cook, World Food Programme - This publication is a welcome initiative reminding development practitioners that during conflicts and pandemics and in fragile circumstances in general, M&E matter more than ever. Marvin Taylor-Dormond, Asian Development Bank - The wealth of examples from the field, combined with the extensive review of applicable evaluation methods will be found invaluable by both new and experienced evaluators. Michael Bamberger - I encourage development practitioners to read this guidance. Fragility and conflict are among the most serious hurdles to achieving the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. Fabrizio Felloni, International Fund for Agricultural Development - This book provides useful advice from the early stages of understanding power and conflict to the final stages of reporting findings, with practical information about choosing methods and protecting staff and communities. Patricia Rogers, BetterEvaluation - This is an important, useful book to produce good-quality evidence while making real-world choices along the way about costs, data, rigour and methods. Jyotsna Puri, IFAD - I highly recommend it. Linda Morra Imas, IPDET - I invite all VOPEs to disseminate and promote the use of this book. Silvia Salinas Mulder, IOCE - This book is a great resource. Asela Kalugampitiya - This book is an important step in enhancing our repertoire for designing and conducting meaningful evaluations in challenging contexts defined by FCV. Juha I. Uitto, Global Environment Facility - This book is essential for all evaluators, especially, YEEs. Khalil Bitar - This book fulfils a long-standing need to provide technical insights on conducting evaluations in contexts of fragility, conflict and violence. Marco Segone, United Nations Population Fund & EvalPartners

Knowledge and rigorous evidence around the role of external development partners in situations of conflict and fragility is still lacking. There is little accountability for the billions in aid being spent in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This book analyses evaluation theory and practice in order to help fill this knowledge gap and advocates a realistic and rigorous approach to evaluating international engagement. Through a series of case studies, this book highlights both the promise, and potential pitfalls, of taking a more evaluative approach to understanding aid in conflict regions. These illustrate the methodological and analytical approach taken by researchers working to understand the results and effectiveness of conflict prevention and peacebuilding support. While well-grounded in current theoretical and methodological debates, the book provides valuable practical information by examining how and why different choices were made in the context of each evaluation. The book shows what future steps may be envisaged to further strengthen evaluations of support for conflict prevention and peacebuilding. The analysis draws on a wealth of perspectives and voices to provide researchers and students in development studies and conflict and peace studies as well as development evaluators with a deep and broad understanding of evaluation methods and approaches.

The guidance presented in this book provides step-by-step guidance on the core steps in planning, carrying out and learning from evaluation, as well as some basic principles on programme design and management.

In Ethics for Evaluation the diverse perspectives on ethical guidance in evaluation are untangled and ordered in a theoretical framework focusing on evaluations doing no harm, tackling bad and doing good. Divided into four parts a diverse group of subject experts present a practical look at ethics, utilizing practical experience to analyze how ethics have been applied in evaluations and how new approaches can shape the future of ethics. The chapters collectively create a common understanding of the potential role of ethics to infuse policy decisions and stakeholder initiatives with evaluations that provide better insight and potential solutions for problems, going beyond "what works" to what needs to be done and what would help. The methodological scope ranges from working in contexts of fragility, conflict and violence, to participatory and decolonized approaches, including the ethical imperatives posed by global crises such as climate change, inequity and exploitative international relations. Ethics for Evaluation presents evaluators, commissioners of evaluation, policymakers and practitioners with inspiration for an ethical perspective on how evaluation can contribute towards solving problems. It presents a solid foundation for inclusive terminology and ethics guidance that would be the heart of a global exercise in professionalization of ethical evaluation practice.

Based on literature review and inputs from surveyed agencies, this book assesses the value and role of early warning for the prevention of violent conflict and identifies the most effective systems.

This book examines the management of ‘state fragility’ and the practices and impacts of quantification over relations of power in international politics. With the further movement towards quantification, and as technical and technological changes advance, this book argues that certain important quantifying practices can be understood in terms of symbolic power, which is more nuanced and subtle. The aim is that such an understanding can also open space for considering other instances of power that are blurred and nuanced in current international politics. By looking at how the merging of conflict and development issues in the fragile states agenda has been fed by and has fed the authority of ever-perfectible numbers, the book offers an approach to address the difficulty in dealing with profound inequality without presuming domination. Instead, the example of the g7+ group of self-labelled ‘fragile states’ and its tools indicate that quantification has reached a point of no return, but it has done so through indirect practices of management and with the complicity, so to say, of those deemed least favoured by it. This shows that there is little chance that policy-makers and academics can escape dealing with numbers and there is much to be gained by understanding how complex and knowingly imperfect statistics become authoritative and widespread. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, International Political Sociology, development studies, and IR in general.

Three years into the 2030 Agenda it is already apparent that those living in fragile contexts are the furthest behind. Not all forms of fragility make it to the public’s eye: fragility is an intricate beast, sometimes exposed, often lurking underneath, but always holding progress back. Conflict ...

States of Fragility 2020 sets a policy agenda for fragility at a critical turning point: the final countdown on Agenda 2030 is at hand, and the pandemic has reversed hard-fought gains. This report examines fragility as a story in two parts: the global state of fragility that existed before COVID-19, and the dramatic impact the pandemic is having on that landscape.