Sustainable Development, Sustainable Peace: Assessing the Impact of Economic Development Interventio

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Sustainable Development, Sustainable Peace
Assessing the Impact of Economic Development
Interventions on Conflict

• Adina Saperstein, Banyan Global
• Andrew Westbury, Land OLakes
• Sharon Morris, Mercy Corps

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PROJECT RATIONALE

• Significant body of knowledge exists on the
  relationship
• between poverty, conflict and state failure
• Lack of evaluation and assessment methodologies
  and
• tools to meaningfully determine the impact
  of economic
• recovery and development programming on both
  poverty
• and conflict in conflict and fragile states
• International community needs to design more
  effective
• interventions in these complex environments.

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PROJECT OBJECTIVES

• Promote greater understanding of the potential
  or limits of
• development interventions to promote poverty
  reduction and
• conflict/fragility-mitigation
• Encourage the development of more meaningful
  measures
• of poverty reduction and conflict/fragility
  mitigation impacts
• Promote cross-community learning and
  problem-solving in
• the area of evaluation and assessment among
  the poverty
• and conflict/fragile states communities

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Five small grants were awarded by USAID that,
over an 18 month period, will seek to stimulate
innovation and knowledge in the area of
evaluation and assessment of interventions aimed
at poverty reduction and the mitigation of
conflict or fragility.
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RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES
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Land OLakes International Development
Knowledge Advancing Peace

• USAID Knowledge Driven Micro Enterprise
  Development (KDMD) Grant

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Land OLakes, Inc.

• 3 dairy company
• 1 feed company
• 1 crop protection products wholesaler
• 3 farm seed company
• Fortune 300 company

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Land OLakes International Development

• Market-driven business systems to generate
  economic growth, improve health and nutrition,
  and alleviate poverty. We apply a private-sector
  value chain approach
• Agricultural productivity and competitiveness
• Food processing, product development, and quality
  assurance
• Enterprise, cooperative, and association
  development
• Food security and livelihood creation
• Health and nutrition

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Priority Conflict Recovery

• Conflict-prone and conflict-affected communities
  ½ of all Land OLakes activities
• Cooperatives and collective action key to
  long-term resolution of conflict
• Commercial enterprise a forum for peaceful
  interactions between adversarial groups
• Example Rift Valley, Kenya

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Land OLakes Theory of Change
Core grievances decline
Economic institutions producing reasonable
livelihoods
Important economic opportunities for poor
communities
Developing inclusive dairy industry
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• Increase understanding of potential or limits of
  Land OLakes poverty reduction initiatives and
  approach to reduce tensions or build peace
• Develop practical and cost-effective assessment
  tools for incorporation into other initiatives

Knowledge Advancing PeaceObjectives
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USDA Food for Progress Southern Philippines

• Objective Develop commercial dairy industry for
  economic opportunity and sustainable livelihood
  for poor and conflict-affected communities in
  Mindanao
• Outputs
• Improved dairy cattle and increased herd
• Better cattle management practices
• Expanded processing capacity
• New market linkages
• Expected Results
• Increase national herd size by 12
• Increase processing capacity from 56,000 to
  72,000 liters
• Create 200 jobs and increase incomes for 1,200
  farmers

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Knowledge Advancing Peace

• Goal Identify and measure linkages between Land
  OLakes economic growth interventions and
  conflict dynamics in the Southern Philippines
• Activities
• Integration into baseline and follow up
  assessment
• Rapid monitoring exercises
• Collaborative learning networks
• Approach
• Mixed methods and tools
• Control and treatment
• Entry point and focus coops
• Scalable and cost effective

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Study Design

• Two level assessment HH and Coop
• Control and treatment groups for comparison
• Six overall and four dairy zones in Year 1
• Mixed methods approaches at baseline, midterm,
  and follow up
• Inclusion of conflict annex
• Rapid monitoring exercises

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Timeline

• July/August/Sept 2009 Develop work plan,
  assessment strategy, identify local partner, PMP,
  literature review
• October 2009 FFP site selection
• Nov./Dec. 2009 Baseline
• Feb., June, Sept. 2010 Monitoring activities
• Tied to FFP evaluation follow up
• 2009 2010 Collaborative learning

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• Progress
• Learning
• - Preliminary areas of conflict interaction
  grazing, cooperative governance, access to
  support services
• Challenges
• Assessing causality and determining rigor of
  assessment
• Solutions
• - Team assembled and fielded
• - Draft indicators and data collection
  techniques
• Preliminary study design
• Peer collaboration
• Future
• - Collaboration with learning network to
  interpret findings and refine approach

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Thank you!
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Poverty Conflict GUC Assessing How Enterprise
Development Employment Generation
Interventions Affect Conflict and Poverty in
Afghanistan
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• Banyan Global is a small, women-owned
• consulting firm with core competency in
• Financial Sector Development
• Microfinance
• Enterprise Development
• Health Sector Development
• Gender Mainstreaming
• Cross-cutting focus on Research Evaluation
• and
• Economic Growth Recovery in Conflict-Affected
  
• Environment

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Banyan Global Theory of Change
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• Project Objectives
• Contribute to best practice in economic recovery
  conflict transformation by investigating the
  indirect effect of employment
• and income generation on poverty conflict
  among employees and their households
• Design and pilot practical adaptable tools
  appropriate for use by low-resource
  organizations in a range of conflict situations
• Support economic development peace building
  initiative in Afghanistan

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• Emphasis on designing tools that are
• easily useable by non-experts
• cost-effective, low-resource
• adaptable to different conflict situations and
  different models of economic growth interventions
  
• built on existing knowledge

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Partnership with Business Council for Peace in
Afghanistan Bpeace is a volunteer, non-profit
organization founded on the premise that
supporting business specifically women
entrepreneurs can help rebuild peace. Bpeace
supports women entrepreneurs in Afghanistan and
Rwanda through a 3-year course of targeted
technical support and market linkages.



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• Bpeace Monitoring Evaluation
• Annual Census of Associates Indicators
• Increase in enterprise
• revenues profits
• Increase in associates
• incomes
• Market expansion
• Change in of employees
• Change in enterprise HH assets
• (HH level data of associates, not employees)

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• Approach to Research Design
• Conduct employee focus groups
• Assess local capacity
• Refine research hypotheses study design
• Design comprehensive baseline data collection
  tool
• Select sample for piloting
• Train local data collection team to pilot tool
• Refine baseline assessment tool
• Develop guidelines for adaptation application
• Design final assessment tool
• Synthesize disseminate lessons learned

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• Research Design Priorities
• Integrate into existing Bpeace ME
• Sample based on testing appropriateness of tool
• Provide clear guidelines for adaptation to
  different environments, intervention types, and
  research objectives

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• Bpeace Employee Focus Groups
• Urban-based Employees
• Ethnically/religiously heterogeneous
• Looser affiliations with own ethnic groups
• Recent returnees, rebuilding ties
• More loosely defined gender roles more
  acceptance of womens independence (work,
  travel, finances, decision-making)
• Women more likely to be exploited economically

Note Focus groups were conducted in August 09.
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• Bpeace Employee Focus Groups
• Rural and peri-urban based Employees
• Ethnically/religiously homogenous
• Tight affiliations with own ethnic group and
  narrower kinship/community groups
• Stricter gender roles less acceptance of
  womens independence (work, travel,
  decision-making) women expected to obey/defer
  to husband, father, community leader in terms of
  financial, family, personal and political
  decisions

Note Focus groups were conducted in August 09.
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• Identifying Indicators
• 1. Measurable HH level indicators to capture
  conflict levels/trends. Examples
• Changes in employees engagement within and
  outside their communities
• Changes in employees decision-making control in
  financial non-financial HH, community and
  civic affairs
• Extent of internal and externally driven conflict
  experienced by employee households

2. Concise and reliable HH poverty indicators
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• Timeline
• Focus groups local capacity assessment done
• in August 2009
• Identified local resource firm to oversee
  piloting
• Currently designing tool, to be piloted January
  2010
• Inform selection process baseline assessment
  of incoming Bpeace group of associates in early
  2010
• Ongoing participation in learning network

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Thank you! For questions, please contact Adina
Saperstein asaperstein_at_banyanglobal.com
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Evaluation and Assessment of Poverty and
Conflict/Fragility Interventions
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PROJECT RATIONALE

• Mercy Corps works exclusively in high-risk
  conflict and post-conflict environments
• 73 of the 40 countries where Mercy Corps has
  programming fall into the category of weak or
  critically weak states (according to the
  Brookings Index of State Weakness)
• 92 of these countries are also considered at
  high or moderately high risk for instability
  (according to University of Marylands recent
  Peace and Conflict Instability Ledger)
• STRONG Commitment to Monitoring and Evaluation
• Mercy Corps is constantly seeking to develop more
  robust measures and approaches

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PROJECT PURPOSE

• Move beyond an individual country focus and
  devote resources necessary to accelerate our
  efforts and test the impact of our programs
  across multiple contexts
• Improve overall data collection methods
• Refine and test Mercy Corps Theories of Change
  about the nature of the relationship between
  poverty, conflict, and state weakness

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THEORIES OF CHANGE
Building economic relationships across lines of
division will demonstrate tangible, concrete
benefits to cooperation.
STABILITY
Strengthening or diversifying livelihoods
opportunities in high-risk regions and/or for
high-risk populations will reduce competition for
scarce economic resources.
Building relationships between local communities
and local government through joint economic
development activities will encourage more
responsive, effective government.
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PROJECT OBJECTIVES

• Develop tools that measure the impact of programs
  designed to promote poverty reduction, conflict
  management, and improved local governance in
  conflict and post-conflict settings
• Evaluate the impact of programs designed to
  promote poverty alleviation, conflict management,
  and good governance through three field tests of
  new evaluation tools
• Develop and disseminate lessons learned and best
  practices through internal and external
  communities of practice

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Three Comparative Case Studies
Building Bridges to Peace (BBP) - Uganda Kotido,
Kaabong, and Pader Districts Strengthening
Institutions for Peace and Development (SIPED)
Ethiopia SNNP, Oromiya and Somali Regional
States Maluku Economic Recovery Programme II
(MERPII) Indonesia Ambon and Seram Islands,
Maluku Province Indonesia
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CROSS-CUTTING DELIVERABLES

• Desk study of existing poverty/conflict
  research
• Refine Theories of Change to be tested over
• the life of the project
• Develop common and case study specific
  indicator menus
• Create data collection tools and techniques
  i.e. surveys,
• indices, data collection forms,
  participatory approaches,
• instruments, joint monitoring teams
• Three case studies on program impact
• Broad dissemination of best practices and
  results both
• internally and externally

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Building Bridges to Peace (BBP) - Uganda
To address key causes of conflict by engaging
communities in joint livelihoods projects that
build mutual interest and promote reconciliation
in northern Karamoja

• M E Tools
• Violent incident reporting form
• Peace committee activity monitoring form
• Joint monitoring teams
• Indicator menus
• Guidelines on data collection

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Strengthening Institutions for Peace and
Development (SIPED) Ethiopia
To address the need for reduced tensions and
improved conditions for sustainable peace in
operational areas.

• M E Tools
• Conflict prevention and resolution institutional
  capacity self-assessment matrix
• Household peace and security survey
• Context monitoring
• Case studies of peace processes

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Maluku Economic Recovery Programme II (MERPII)
Indonesia
To address the need for community-led sustainable
development for conflict-affected communities in
Ambon and Seram Islands.

• M E Tools
• In the Development Phase

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Next Steps

• Test and continue to refine ME and Survey Tools
  
• BBP Uganda testing will begin in November
• SIPED Ethiopia testing slated to begin in
  December
• MERP II Indonesia testing dates are still TBD
• Integrate, to the extent possible, crisis
  mapping and early warning tools into ME
  processes
• i.e. Ushahidi System (crowd sourcing system
  developed in Kenya)
• Continue to participate in USAID Learning
  Network dialogue
• Write three case studies

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You must be the change you wish to see in the
world. Mahatma Gandhi
For questions please contact Sharon
Morris smorris_at_dc.mercycorps.org
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COMMON CHALLENGES

• The extent to which agencies will be able to say
  anything about the causal relationship between
  poverty and conflict by the end of this project
  
• Perceived output is that we will be able to
  identify correlations between program activities
  and conflict mitigation outcomes
• Developing "universal" indicators that will allow
  us to evaluate impact across countries and
  programs, while ensuring indicators are relevant
  to local contexts
• Designing tools and methodologies that are
  adaptable to different types of conflicts and
  different kinds of interventions
• Security risk associated with collecting conflict
  data from beneficiaries/monitors

 
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KEY ISSUES

• Program constraints -
• Timeline
• Budget
• Piggy-backing on existing programs 
• Limitations regarding the ability to implement
  rigorous research methods because planning must
  be done around the existing programs rather than
  during the initial program design phase
• Deciphering the best way to work with field teams
  to develop rigorous ME tools
• Identifying the key elements of conflict and
  stability to measure and determining which of
  these elements are most relevant and most likely
  to indicate change

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NEXT STEPS

• Data Collection
• Liaison with members of the projects USAID
  directed Learning Network
• Continue to conduct research around relevant
  indicators for peace and stability and applicable
  ME tools

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THANK YOU!!