Who built the peace? Rachel Julian Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Transforming Matters

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1 Who built the peace? Rachel Julian Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Transforming Matters

2 Civilian Peacekeeping the prevention of direct violence through influence or control of the behaviour of potential perpetrators by unarmed civilians who are deployed on the ground. (Schweitzer 2009)

3 Why use systemic evaluation? The work is in-direct, therefore a linear causal relationship is hard to establish. The work takes place in a complex systemic environment, and a linear evaluation tool doesn t match the environment. External events can make it look like the project is not achieving the goal. The tasks are iterative, so the effects are often subjective.

4 Case study - Sri Lanka, 2008 Nonviolent Peaceforce has been running a civilian protection project in Eastern Sri Lanka since In 2008 there were the first provincial elections in the Eastern province, and although there was some violence at some polling stations, the elections were declared valid, but in the days following the election, when the decision was made about who would be the Chief Minister for the Provincial Council, violence erupted. QuickTime and a decompressor are needed to see this picture.

5 Purpose of the evaluation Looking at this period, NP was involved in a lot of activities in order to restrain and halt the violence, or early warning initiatives. This evaluation is specifically looking at the time April-July 2008 at the changes and events which took place in Batticaloa and Valaichchennai. The evaluation asks what role Nonviolent Peaceforce played in reducing, halting and preventing the violence.

6 What was happening? In May 2008 there were provincial violence erupted in Batticaloa. In previous similar incidents, the violence has spread north to Valaichchenai. This time the violence did not spread from Batticaloa to Valaichchenai. Significant events appear to be: In Batticaloa the Bishop held a meeting for all religious leaders In Valaichchennai the Traders Union decided to reject violence and trust that they would all reject it, and avoided attacks to shops on either side of the street The Valaichchennai community network made it possible to share information, and got the Army and Police to increase their patrols

7 The evaluation approach I have evaluated this a Goal Free approach Goal Free allows you to start with the changes that are evident, and investigate if there is any role played by the project being evaluated. You ask what changes have taken place, then you ask what contributed to that change.

8 Goal free Goal Free looks for the changes, and asks what evidence there is for what influenced those changes. It is more useful in a systems environment because it doesn t test a logical causality, but can draw out what changes have taken place from the perspective of local people.

9 What changes happened? キキキキキキキキキ Muslims attended the meeting with the Bishop of Batticaloa from which there was a joint statement. There was an outbreak of violence despite the efforts of Muslim leaders and the TMVP. n Valaichchennai Tamils and Muslims had contact early, before the violence spread. Members of Valaichchcennai Traders Union received information from Nonviolent Peaceforce about the situation in Batticaloa Increased patrols of Sri Lankan Army and the Police. They were more accessible and more easily contactable. No shops were burnt down invalaichchennai. People felt safer OCPC worked together and organised a meeting with all the stakeholders. No Tamil - Muslim violence happened in Valaichchennai OCPC opened an office and registered as an organisation

10 What do you attribute those changes to?

11 Clear indications The Divisional Secretary of Valaichchenai, the chief government representative in the area, told members of team that it was their work and presence in Valaichchenai that prevented the violence in the southern part of the district from spreading to the north.

12 Evaluation conclusion NP played an instrumental role in ensuring that violence did not spread to Valaichchenai. They were in the right place at the right time to ensure they had the access to correct information, had built trust and relationships over the previous 5 years, and were able to provide the material support in terms of safe spaces that enabled local people to make decisions. The Batticaloa team showed some indicators that they had access to the information, were trusted to accompany people to meetings, but had not built strong enough relationships that meant local people made significantly different decisions because of the work of NP.

13 Evaluation conclusions However, because many of the tasks were facilitation and developmental (such as accompanying people to meetings), NP would rarely be described by beneficiaries as contributing to the outcome. For example, the Muslims who were accompanied to the meeting called by the Bishop of Batticaloa might have pointed to NP, but no external report of the meeting mentioned them.

14 Lessons learnt I found it easier to see the contribution to change by looking at what the change was, rather than the indicators. I could see that NP played a role in the starting stages. By looking at the changes, Goal Free evaluation showed up the differences in the situations. Although relationship building happened in both, it didn t have the same impact. Didn t capture what had been the result of long term work rather than being fortuitous, for example giving space to OCPC to run an office. It s able to show adaptability of a program and able to react to events. ( nonstop activity was reported) Goal Free Evaluation can give some insight into how a project helps people and communities, when thrown into extreme events such as this, because it doesn t ask what was planned. I haven t resolved how this method handles secret activities. Such activities probably wouldn t emerge unless the evaluators was guided to someone and interviewed them in circumstances where they felt secure. I found uncertainty from others about the type of report that could be produced from this type of evaluation.

15 Can it be used in other evaluations? Certainly. It best suits evaluations where planning has not been done, or where external events have forced the project to work in a responsive manner. Alone, Goal Free can be very exploratory. If time and resources allow, then you can follow paths through the system building up a more complete picture. With restrictions on time or a desired output to inform other stakeholders on the progress of the project, it is best used as a mixed method, either with a more reflective/process orientated method like MOVIE, or a more results based method such as Contribution Analysis.

16 Who built the peace?

17 What were the actual objectives and indicators at the time? In 2008 the key objectives for NP in Sri Lanka were: 1.Build the confidence of local organizations and individuals to address issues of human rights, peace and justice with authorities at all levels. 2.Provide space and opportunity for formal and informal networks to form and to function effectively at the community level to prevent, resolve, or limit the effects of violence. 3.Facilitate coordinated action on human security at community, district, national, and international levels (From Furnari 2010b)

18 Indicators The indicators were: The number of community incidents NPSL responds to, キキキキキ キキキキキ キ increase in early response and decrease in emergency response number of violent incidents mitigated or prevented, number of organizations and people in networks, number of network meetings, facilitating increased and effective governmental protection of vulnerable communities, number of accompaniments decrease in community isolation, networks are connected and respond in coordination, networks engage in both prevention and response activities, Robust communication networks function for prevention and response to violence.. New actors engage and current actors increase their activity positively affecting the human security, (From Furnari 2010b)