Resilience and Research: Developing Community-Driven Evaluation & Learning Agendas in Conflict

Abstract Information: While evaluators rightly cheer the shift towards more evidence-driven programming such as the development of project and portfolio learning agendas, the use of more comprehensive approaches to evidence also highlights a challenge: How can international development programs maintain robust learning agendas in the face of major disruptions such as violent conflict? While they are essential for identifying knowledge gaps and informing strategic decisions, the maintenance of learning agendas, and robust MEL systems in general, require significant time, access to information, and a diverse range of stakeholders, all of which are acutely impeded in conflict conditions. This panel will explore how two organizations working in democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) and peacebuilding spaces sustained effective MEL systems during the outbreak of violent conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan. It will discuss how these projects accommodated conflict sensitivity principles without compromising their broader learning objectives. Panelists from Pact and Search for Common Ground will highlight case studies from their work, sharing their use of participatory development processes to create MEL plans, conflict sensitivity strategies, and learning agendas that foster a culture of critical reflection about what works and why in conflict affected spaces. It will also draw on their use of the using the Peace Impact Framework, a learning framework designed to measure conflict across all vital signs of peace. Panel attendees will leave with insights on the potential of conflict sensitive learning agendas to contribute to project, portfolio, and sectoral learning about the potential of DRG and peacebuilding programs.