FINAL EVALUATION OF A PBF-FUNDED COMMUNITY VIOLENCE REDUCTION PROJECT IN BAMBARI

CLIENT: IOM CAR

COUNTRY: Central African Republic

START - END DATE: February - April 2022

VALUE (EUR): 20,000.00 €

PARTNERS: N/A

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The response to the violence committed by the armed groups required an innovative means of providing solutions. Community Violence Reduction (CVR) actors needed to short-circuit the manpower lines of the armed groups. Unemployed youths who considered joining the armed groups as the only source of survival needed an alternative to abandon their enrollment/enlistment and participation into armed conflict. These youths had conflict carrying capacities and it was therefore necessary to starve the armed groups with the manpower they needed to continue the conflicts.

The national Community Violence Reduction strategy aims to provide the Government of CAR (GoCAR), the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and CAR international partners engaged in CVR programming with an overarching conceptual framework, and to foster coordination between the actors implementing CVR and related stabilization programs. During the strategy development process, it was observed that several organizations were designing and implementing CVR and CVR-like interventions in isolation from each other, and sometimes in competition in the same locations. The strategy serves to close both the policy and implementation gaps, and to create synergy among actors to maximize cost-effectiveness towards a common goal.

In this manner, Community Violence Reduction in Greater Bambari Area implemented from September 2017 to August 2020 was designed to be fully complementary to the ongoing pre-DDR activities and the future national DDR programme, avoiding overlap of beneficiaries and ensuring a comprehensive and holistic approach to the security enhancement and stabilisation process in the target area.

SERVICES PROVIDED

The final evaluation  will present an opportunity to assess the achievements of the CVR project in Ouaka (Bambari) in an inclusive way and to determine its overall added value to peacebuilding in CAR in the areas of community violence reduction, peacebuilding and peace consolidation.

In assessing the theory of change, the evaluation will assess the degree to which the project met its intended peacebuilding objective(s) and results. The evaluation will provide key lessons about successful peacebuilding approaches and operational practices, as well as highlight areas where the project performed less effectively than anticipated. In that sense, this project evaluation is equally about accountability as well as learning. Cross-cutting themes, such as Gender, Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP), Rights-Based Approach, Environment shall be evaluated, as well.

Objectives of the evaluation:

• Assess the relevance and appropriateness of the project in terms of: addressing key drivers of conflict and the most relevant peacebuilding issues; alignment with National Peacebuilding Policy and national priorities of CAR;
• whether the project capitalized on the UN’s added value in CAR; and the degree to which the project addressed cross-cutting issues such as conflict and gender-sensitivity in CAR;
• Assess to what extent the PBF projects have made a concrete contribution to reducing a conflict factor in CAR. With respect to PBF’s contributions, the evaluations may evaluate whether the project helped advance achievement of the SDGs, and in particular SDG 16;
• Evaluate the project’s efficiency, including its implementation strategy, institutional arrangements as well as its management and operational systems and value for money;
• Assess whether the support provided by the PBF has promoted the Women, Peace and Security agenda (WPS), allowed a specific focus on women’s participation in peacebuilding processes, and whether it was accountable to gender equality;
• Assess whether the project has been implemented through a conflict-sensitive approach;
• Document good practices, innovations and lessons emerging from the project;
• Provide actionable recommendations for future programming.