Amani Labda - Peace Maybe Joint Evaluation of Conflict - Channel ...

JOINT EVALUATION OF CONFLICT PREVENTION AND PEACE BUILDING IN DRCVOLUME 1It unfolds a difficulty to distinguish between activities—whether they are supportor not by a state, by donors, and by aid organisations—that may be considered asdirect contributors or alternatively as indirect contributors to the prevention ofconflicts and peacebuilding.The OECD guidelines provide a practical definition of the four categories ofconflict prevention and peacebuilding strategies, termed Utstein in the OECDguide, which allowed for the framing of the evaluation:1. Interventions that encourage a culture of justice, truth and reconciliation,often indispensable in post-conflict settings where there are socialrelationships to heal;2. Capacity building and good governance that are essential to safeguardingindividual security needs, particularly when states are incapable orunwilling to implement appropriate measures for peacekeeping, or tofacilitate sustainable peace through social service delivery;3. The policies and actions of conflict prevention and peacebuilding oftenalign themselves to systems promoting non-violent resolution of conflicts.Support to security and justice sectors—including actors in the judicial,penitentiary, police, parliament, defense and military—is critical, and mustbe considered within a long-term project-focus aimed at promoting bettergovernance within these sectors and, ultimately, respect and dignity forthe most vulnerable citizens;4. Socio-economic development and its underlying policies are important,even during periods of hostility. It is essential to address violence andstructural inequalities in order to reduce tensions and improve society’scapacity to prevent violence—which often forms part of conflictprevention work. 21These four broad categories allowed the evaluation to adopt a more globalapproach, by assuming that no single intervention undertaken in the DRC can beconsidered on its own within the framework of conflict prevention andpeacebuilding. The only exception may be the peacekeeping operationsmandated by the UN. They were excluded from the project database, except for afew STAREC projects (this will be explained further). However, they are alltackled through the perspective of their contribution to conflict and peacedynamics.At the heart of the categories, and in line with the TOR, the team identifiedcertain representative themes. It should be noted that the analysis of these themesis not and should not be linked to an analysis of the sectors of cooperation thatsupport them. They are chosen in order to allow for a more coherent approach21 OECD, Evaluation Guidelines for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding, 2008, p. 17.