Thematic Evaluation of the European Commission support to Conflict Prevention and Peace Building

The first part of the evaluation was a preliminary study aimed at preparing this” Evaluation of the European Commission support to conflict prevention and peace building”. The purpose of the study was: 1) To provide an inventory and typology of the Commission’s funding 2) To reconstruct the Intervention Logic 3) To describe the Regulatory Framework 4) To make on this basis concrete proposals to determine the scope and approach for the forthcoming evaluation. This preliminary study covered interventions financed, amongst others, by the EC instruments for Non-state Actors, the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, Migration, and Food security. The second phase was a conceptual study to provide a thorough understanding of the Commission’s strategy in terms of CPPB and specifically the meaning of “the integrated approach” followed by the Commission and other donors in this field. To examine which guidance and support the EC provided to facilitate this approach to CPPB and the practices (guidance and support) of the integrated approach. On this basis, it sought to construct an analytical framework for the evaluation. The subject of the evaluation, as thereafter agreed was the Commission’s support to conflict prevention, as defined in the Commission 2001 Communication on Conflict Prevention (COM(2001)211). The evaluation covers activities for which the Commission has full responsibility, namely those covered under the first EU pillar, while activities under the second EU pillar have been examined by looking at coordination and coherence issues. The objectives for this evaluation have been as follows: • To provide an overall independent assessment of the Commission’s support to conflict prevention and peace building, over the period 2001-2010, at a general level, based on the answers to the agreed evaluation questions which cover relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, sustainability, as well as coherence, coordination and complementarity and the Commission's value added; and • To identify key lessons to improve current and future Commission strategies and programmes. Lessons learnt will take into account recent developments (e.g. the European Consensus, the Paris Declaration, and the EU Lisbon Treaty). The temporal scope covers the period 2001-2010. In that respect, the mapping of funds carried out in the preliminary study, which covered the period 2001-2008, has been updated to cover the period 2008 to 2010. The geographical scope covers all regions where EC cooperation is implemented (e.g ACP, ALA, and ENP) with the exception of regions and countries under the mandate of DG Enlargement. The funds covered include Community thematic and geographical budget lines, the European Development Fund (EDF) and other financial instruments with the exception of humanitarian relief under the responsibility of DG ECHO. The evaluation found that the Commission has, since 2001, implemented a substantial shift in support to CPPB by developing its funding, policy framework and instruments but that there was a gap between the Commission’s policy commitment to an integrated approach for CPPB support and the actual implementation of this approach. It also found that the ambition of the Commission regarding its role in conflict (-prone) and postconflict countries and regions was not always clear and its support often remained wedded to a developmental perspective rather than fostering a shift towards a genuine CPPB perspective with a clear and prioritised strategy. On strategy issues, the evaluation also found that the Commission generally had a reactive rather than a pro-active approach to conflict. The conflict (-prone) or post-conflict context challenged the relevance of the alignment of Commission support on the strategies and policies of national authorities. The Commission channelled half of its financial support through international organisations, allowing it to intervene in a coordinated manner in contexts where otherwise it would not have been present, but which also made it vulnerable to the drawbacks of the use of this aid modality. On results and impacts, the evaluation showed that the Commission’s support in conflict (-prone) and post-conflict countries and regions the Commission provided various types of value-added that differentiated it from most other actors. In some cases the Commission played a key role in mitigating the impact of root causes, notably through an integrated approach. Its support also generally had a positive contribution on conflict mitigation, stabilisation, reconstruction and rehabilitation. But the overall impact of its support in terms of CPPB remained impossible to predict. The Commission was hampered in the increasing role it played with respect to CPPB by its mandate and differences in priorities among EU MS. On means and implementation, the Commission’s institutional set-up, its human resources policy and tools and guidance were not commensurate with its policy commitments and the level of its funding for CPPB: Timeliness of the delivery of Commission CPPB support has often been challenged by insufficient anticipation of difficulties specifically related to the conflict or conflict (-prone) context, as well as by heavy Commission procedures, which however were at times also appreciated for their “protective” function


Project Details
Country THIRD COUNTRIES
Start date 2009.01.12
End date 2009.09.24
Client EC
Sector EVALUATION
Sub-sector Thematic
Ref. ADE A380-01