2. M&E practitioners should consider utilizing the resources on www.dmeforpeace.org – signing up
for an account, listening to M&E Thursday Talks, and sharing their own evaluation resources, in order
to improve and strengthen their practice.
3. Evaluators in the peace/stability arena (including military, government, etc. stakeholders) should
not simply measure whether a task has been accomplished but also how that task has contributed to
overall peace and stability in the region. If that has not been the focus previously, connecting with a
platform like DME for Peace where the focus is evaluating for peace can help to provide the tools for
this type of evaluation (such as ethical principles, theories of change, etc.).
Implications.
If evaluators do not share their evaluations openly, they may be less likely to learn from each other and
might stay risk-averse. However, an active community of practice encourages a culture of learning and
evaluation which makes evaluation more integrated in the peacebuilding community.
If government, military and non-governmental programs do not monitor and evaluate for peace and
not just task accomplishment, then they could “win the battles but lose the war”; in other words, their
actions may not be feeding into broader peace and/or stability and may precipitate unforeseen/
unintended consequences. However, focusing on “peace writ large” enables a broader scope of
evaluation, centering the results of the evaluation on what is best for and from the people of that
region to bring peace and stability.
Event Description.
This lesson is based on these resources:
• “The Peacebuilding Evaluation Consortium, Learning and Doing with DME for Peace: Two
Years of Sharing Knowledge and Best Practi ce,” E. Duncan, V. Corlazzoli, J. Miller, Search for
Common Ground (SFCG), (31 March 2015).
• “DM&E for Peace,” Concept Note, Search for Common Ground, Distributed at Alliance for
Peacebuilding 2017 Annual Conference by Program Manager J. Farrell, (11-13 October 2017).
• Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation for Peace website: www.dmeforpeace.org.
• “Peacebuilding Evaluation Consortium: Improved Learning and Evaluation for Better
Peacebuilding,” PEC Brief, J. Baumgardner-Zuzik, Alliance for Peacebuilding, (October 2017).
• See also: The Little Book of Strategic Peacebuilding, L. Schirch, Good Books: Intercourse,
PA, (2004).
Lesson Author: Katrina Gehman, Lessons Learned Analyst (Ctr), PKSOI
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