Results-based PME&L for peacebuilding initiatives: Opportunities and challengesThis is a featured page

Results-based Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for peacebuilding initiatives: Opportunities and Challenges

In the field of development, and in peacebuilding in particular, there is often a good degree of scepticism towards employing formal tools for PME & L initiatives. It is sometimes perceived as a donor-driven methodology to safeguard accountability that is more of a burden than a useful and relevant tool. It can be stated that there are opportunities and challenges tied to using PME & L tools.

Opportunities
Let us look at the key opportunities first:
  • Working in complex and changing environments necessitates tools for managing this complexity and carrying out projects/programmes in a way that responds to the context. PME&L, if integrated systematically in the way of work, is a set of tools designed for exactly doing that. A key tenet of PME&L is that every engagement and initiative should be based on a process of analysis and reflection.
  • Learning, besides accountability, is at the centre of PME&L. Learning is a continuous process of investigation, that is a cycle of experiencing, reflecting, applying again, experiencing and reflecting again etc. In peacebuilding, monitoring and evaluation are learning disciplines and learning takes place throughout the whole process of PME&L. Through its focus on analysis and data collection, RBM provides unique learning opportunities, both within the project/programme and about the context.
  • The results-based PME&L approach encourages project teams to think their engagement through. It systematically asks: Where do you want to go? Why is this relevant? What is the most appropriate way to get there?
  • PME&L also provides an infrastructure that systematically encourages documentation and learning, which is a good basis for sharing experiences with other actors in the field of peacebuilding and learn from each other.
  • Results-based PME & L allows for efficient use of scarce resources.
Challenges
The approach of RBM has been criticized for a number of reasons, which shall be briefly presented here[1], before specific challenges for PME&L in peacebuilding will be presented below:
  • It is a donor-imposed management approach that leads to an oversimplification of reality by capturing a complex development process in a simple framework. While it is to a certain extent necessary to simplify in order to plan, it is also risky – the real complexity of the context might lead to irrelevant interventions.
  • The “theory of change” of results-based management is that there is a linear logic and a cause and effect relationship between inputs, outputs, outcomes and impact. This contradicts the understanding of development – and peacebuilding the more so – as a complex process.
  • RBM/LFA conveys the message that a specific development result can be attributed to a specific agency/initiative. Critics say that this is hardly the case and instead suggest thinking in terms of contribution. Many actors and factors are contributing to a change.
  • The focus on results bears the risk that the process that led to the results’ achievement is not reflected upon and included in learning efforts.
  • Another major concern is that RBM is alien to other cultures and a challenge to introduce to local partners in a way that creates ownership. Often, it is difficult to translate this approach to other languages.
  • Connected to this, RBM even though it particularly highlights its participatory nature, seems to pose challenges for doing it in a participatory manner, especially because it is time-consuming.
  • For the LFA in particular: The application of the LFA often stops when the framework has been filled – it is often not used for managing project implementation. This contradicts the philosophy of RBM as a management approach. In addition, if the LFA use does not pay enough attention to the analyses stages (that are the key tenet of the approach), there is a risk that working with LFA’s becomes a fill-in-the-box exercise.
  • RBM focuses on expected results and thereby risks failing to see unintended consequences, both positive and negative ones.

Peacebuilding engagement seems to face some specific challenges for applying formal PME&L tools:[2]
  • Peacebuilding takes place in rapidly shifting settings that simultaneously demand both immediate action and thoughtful efforts to deal with key driving forces of conflict or “root causes”. Creative strategies to be effective in the moment of crisis and consider long-term changes are necessary.
  • Unexpected new violence can destroy peacebuilding efforts of months or even years. Patience is a key quality of peacebuilders.
  • Peacebuilding requires the building of relationships and trusts – phenomena that are notb easily measured in objective and quantitative ways.
  • Peacebuilding – as sustainable development – requires the efforts of many actors, on different levels and in different ways. It seems almost impossible to attribute particular changes to a particular project or programme.
  • Due to lacking infrastructure and weak statistical document, the collection of baseline and monitoring data is very difficult. This effect is reinforced by insecurity that can make data collection physically impossible (or possible on a smaller scale than planned, delayed).
Notes:
[1] This mainly builds on Sarah Earl/Fred Carden/Terry Smutylo, Outcome Mapping. Building Learning and Reflection into Development Programmes, IDRC, 2001. <http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-9330-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html> (accessed 29 May 2009) and Bakewell, Oliver/Garbutt, Anne, The Use and Abuse of the Logical Framework Approach, Swedish International Development Agency, November 2005. http://www.sida.se/shared/jsp/download.jsp?f=LFA-review.pdf&a=21025 (accessed 30 June 2009)
[2] See here Lederach, J. P. et. al., Reflective Peacebuilding: A Planning, Monitoring, And Learning Toolkit, The Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame and Catholic Relief Service South East Asia Regional Office 2007, pp. 1f. < http://kroc.nd.edu/sites/default/files/reflective_peacebuilding.pdf> (accessed 26 March 2009). Anderson, Mary B./Olson, Lara, Confronting War: Critical Lessons for Peace Practitioners, The Collaborative for Development Action, Cambridge, MA 2003, p. 9. and Reina C. Neufeldt (2007), "Frameworkers" and "Circlers" - Exploring assumptions in peace and conflict impact assessment, in: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation, p. 5ff. <http://www.berghof-handbook.net/uploads/download/neufeldt_handbook.pdf> (accessed 30 June 2009)

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