Learning from Nine Examples of Peacebuilding Evaluation

contributed to the absence of violence. The team used an inductive methodology
of field-based listening to a broad range of people through
open-ended questions. This approach was chosen to ensure that the impacts
of peacebuilding activities were considered. In addition, because there was
no universally accepted definition of peacebuilding, the team utilized an
inductive approach to define the scope of activities that would be evaluated
and assess, again without a prescriptive list, how these related to all the factors
that enabled communities to resist violent conflict.
Initially, CDA used both qualitative, in the form of seven case studies, and
quantitative methods to collect data and then used a particular systems
approach applicable in complex situations with multiple stakeholders and
interventions to identify situational dynamics and broader patterns. This is
consistent with Patton’s approach in Developmental Evaluation that applies
complexity concepts to “complex environments for social interventions and
innovations.” 6 The team broke the process into the following phases:
1. Mapping of interethnic violence: to identify trends in and nature of violence
by region and provide a basis for analyzing the significance and absence of
violence through interethnic crime statistics from 2002 to 2006.
2. Workshops with practitioners and policymakers: to support the definition
of categories of violence, the development of hypotheses regarding factors
based on participant experiences, and the preliminary mapping of peacebuilding
work and identification of the theories of change associated with
that work.
3. Development of seven case studies: focused on a comparison across high/
low peacebuilding support, high/low levels of violence over time, violence/
no violence through twenty to forty semi-structured individual interviews
and small groups in each community.
4. Analysis and consultations: through cross-case comparisons to identify
patterns, collaborative analysis in consultations with local actors. Qualitative
methods were used to identify variables and patterns across the cases.
In addition, systems thinking frameworks and tools were applied, including
system dynamics and the Human Systems Dynamics’ Container, Difference,
Exchange (CDE) Model (see full report linked below, or “Complexity Models
and Conflict: A Case Study from Kosovo” by Glenda Eoyang and Lois Yellowthunder
for more information on methodology). This systems-based analysis
permitted the identification of how and why peacebuilding interventions had
intended and unintended effects.
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The team chose a particular systems approach because they believed that
a linear model would misdiagnose the highly complex, interactive relationships
among various factors that led to the absence of or resistance to
6 Michael Quinn Patton, Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation
and Use (New York: The Guilford Press, 2011).