Monitoring and Evaluation at HD
While some peacemaking interventions produce tangible and observable results, such as signed agreements or implemented ceasefires, the impact of peacemaking initiatives is generally hard to measure in a concrete and accessible way. The complex, dynamic and sensitive nature of HD’s work and of the conflict environments in which it operates makes it difficult to measure the impact of its operations. Yet, important steps such as gaining access to conflict parties, carrying out confidence-building initiatives, providing discreet support to official peace processes, or establishing reliable channels for communication to hard-to-reach armed groups, though less tangible are no less valuable and impactful in building sustainable peace in the long term.
Monitoring and Evaluation
In response to the challenges of measuring the impact of peacemaking efforts, HD has developed an adaptive Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) approach, which provides an evaluation framework adaptable to highly uncertain and complex situations. This enables HD to more effectively demonstrate the value and impact of its work. HD has taken the best elements of traditional M&E approaches and developed an innovative model which draws on a wider base of evidence and assesses the organisation’s work at three levels:
- Assuring the quality of professional judgments: this forms the foundation for evaluating HD’s work, even where peacemaking results and processes are difficult to define. Assuring the quality of HD’s judgments through methods such as peer reviews (below) helps HD provide the best possible peacemaking outcomes in highly dynamic contexts.
- Assessing the strategic logic of the project: a project’s strategy can be evaluated even before the project starts to generate measurable results. An informed peer or expert should find the project’s logic clear and convincing, and it also needs to be adapted as the project is being implemented.
- Measuring observable results: where results are tangible, for example in the case of ceasefire agreements, these outcomes are assessed and reported. Over the last three years, HD has supported the conclusion of almost 40 agreements across the world, including peace and conflict management accords, violence reduction or local settlements as well as humanitarian access deals.
HD’s methods for Monitoring and Evaluation
HD’s M&E approach allows the organisation’s projects to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances on the ground. HD uses a peer review method which enables its operational teams to reflect critically on their project’s objectives, logic, achievements and risks with trusted internal and external colleagues. Peer reviews result in better decision-making by providing additional insight and by challenging assumptions, analyses and strategies. They may produce immediate changes to the project’s design or strategy, or affirm the project team’s good judgement in a complex and highly dynamic operating environment. Where necessary, HD also conducts external evaluations and reviews, and seeks the opinion of expert advisers. The organisation also supports the emergence of innovative evaluation approaches across the peacemaking sector by collaborating with counterpart organisations, donors, universities and think tanks. The purpose of these collaborations is to examine how other tools – including criteria-based benchmarking, network analysis and data visualisation– can be used to more effectively measure and describe less tangible results.
Funding
HD would like to thank the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands for supporting its Monitoring and Evaluation work
