Peace mediation and peacebuilding are notoriously difficult endeavours. Many actors are definitely beyond the ‘control’ of the mediators or peacebuilders, very difficult to influence or even hard to reach. Most conflicts evolve into a set of interlocking conflict dynamics, with international, regional, national and local layers that are interconnected but also have somewhat different driving factors and key actors.
Yet donors, as well as mediators, want to assess, even ‘evaluate’ the ‘effectiveness’ and ‘impact’ of their actions. The question is: What is the reference, what are relevant criteria? Two main reference sources can be used: the OECD evaluation criteria, and what we have learned, from years of comparative experience, about practices that increase the likelihood of having some positive influence or impact.
This brief focuses on the OECD evaluation criteria and how applicable they are to peace mediation and peacebuilding. It observes that there is significant misunderstanding, among those commissioning such evaluations and sometimes among evaluators themselves, about the realities of peace mediation and peacebuilding, certainly in ongoing conflict situations, and ignorance of how the OECD advises they be used.
It concludes with the observation that evaluating peace mediation and/or peacebuilding is by no means only a matter of methodological competence. That has important implications for the choice of reviewers and evaluators.