Monitoring & Evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is the process through which we seek to understand and communicate the impact of our work. In the context of environmental peacebuilding, this means the process of collecting and analyzing data to understand if the interventions are on track (monitoring) and if they achieved the objectives (evaluation). Monitoring helps to adjust programming to dynamic situations and ongoing learning; evaluation is central to upward and downward accountability as well as learning.

There are challenges to effective M&E in environmental peacebuilding. What metrics best capture both environmental and peacebuilding impacts? How should evaluation account for the long time horizon for determining impacts? Given the multiplicity of actors and the lack of treatment and control cases, how can projects properly attribute outcomes? Practitioners must grapple with these difficult questions, while also facing the complications of working in fragile, often dangerous, contexts that can make on-the-ground monitoring and evaluation nearly impossible.

To help address these and other complications, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), the Environmental Peacebuilding Association (EnPAx), and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), with support from the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), are undertaking a project to improve M&E for environmental peacebuilding. This project will take stock of existing literature and good practices in order to produce a review article on the current state of knowledge on the subject, a toolkit for practitioners, and a policy brief aimed at decision-makers. This project is guided by an advisory group consisting of global scholars and practitioners from a diverse range of disciplines. The project is led by Carl Bruch and Amanda Woomer, and guided by an Advisory Group. For more information on the project, please contact bruch@eli.org.