II-c: Evaluating in conflict affected and fragile contexts: Practical approaches for complex programmes

description

Around the world, conflict, fragility and protracted crisis are growing in frequency, intensity, and geographic reach, posing some of the most significant challenges to development and humanitarian assitance today. This is shaping not only outcomes but also how interventions must be designed, implemented, and evaluated. In such contexts of conflict and fragility, programmes operate in environments shaped by political tensions, insecurity, rapidly changing conditions, and overlapping objectives. These dynamics affect how evaluations can be designed, implemented, and used, and require evaluators to adapt standard approaches and assumptions.

Timely evidence-based decision-making remains crucial in conflict-affected and fragile settings, but is often constrained by limited access, data gaps, ethical concerns, displacement/people on the move and political sensitivities. Evaluations that are not sufficiently adapted to these realities risk producing incomplete or misleading findings or unintentionally causing harm.

This interactive workshop aims to address these challenges by introducing practical approaches to evaluating programmes in fragile and conflict settings. It combines core concepts of conflict sensitivity with applied examples from development and humanitarian contexts, including situations where humanitarian, development, and peace objectives intersect (Humanitarian Development Peace – HDP nexus). Participants will explore how conflict dynamics influence evaluation design choices, methods, stakeholder engagement, and the use of findings, for development and resilience programmes operating in fragile and conflict-affected contexts in both rural and urban settings.

The workshop uses a mix of short lectures, case studies, group work, and facilitated discussion. Participants will work with applied examples to practice framing evaluation questions, adapting theories of change, selecting appropriate methods under conditions of uncertainty and constraint and ensuring accountability to affected populations in the evaluation process. The focus is on strengthening evaluative judgment and practical decision-making rather than on prescriptive tools.

By the end of the workshop, participants will have applied conflict-sensitive thinking to the design of an evaluation and will be better equipped to navigate ethical, political, and methodological challenges in these contexts.

objectives

The workshop aims to strengthen participants’ knowledge and skills in evaluating interventions in conflict-affected and fragile settings. After the workshop, participants:

• understand key concepts related to conflict, fragility, and conflict sensitivity and their implications for evaluation;
• are able to assess how conflict and fragility dynamics affect evaluation design, methods, and use;
• know how to adapt evaluation questions, theories of change, and data collection approaches in constrained environments;
• are better prepared to identify and manage ethical, political, and safety-related risks; and
• can apply conflict-sensitive thinking across different sectors and contexts.

recommended for

The workshop is suitable for evaluators and evaluation commissioners working in development, humanitarian assistance, peacebuilding, and related fields.

level

Intermediate level. The workshop is intended for participants with prior experience in evaluation who wish to strengthen their ability to work in complex and fragile contexts. Prior experience in conflict-affected settings is not required.

prerequisites

Participants should have foundational knowledge of qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods. Some experience with project, programme, or thematic evaluations is recommended.

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