During a networking day for Dutch civilian experts, participants had the opportunity to engage with policymakers in the MFA, and connect with each other on their experience and challenges of working in multilateral missions for short periods of time, as well as on practical and substantive questions involved in their day to day work.

The Platform facilitated several of the discussions during this networking day. The opening panel, with P.J. Kleiweg-De Zwaan (Director Security Policy), Gert Kampman (Deputy Director Stabilization and Humanitarian Aid), Jaïr van der Lijn (Senior research fellow Clingendael/ SIPRI) and facilitated by Sergei Boeke (Senior research fellow ICCT), delved into the challenges of measuring and impact of missions, in an era of an increased focus on showing concrete results of interventions. While it is indeed difficult to present immediate results of interventions, more specifically the role of civilian experts in these missions, we should try to steer away from a focus on outputs. Instead we should look into the long term perspective and acknowledging the fact that change generally takes more than the cycle of one mission and is by no means a linear process. The valuable role of civilian experts in these missions was underlined, in terms of their contributions to sustainable peace as well as their important role as linking pin between the MFA and the field.

Various breakout sessions were facilitated by Platform members, focusing on Rule of Law in conflict contexts in European and African regions (The Hague Institute for Global Justice, Clingendael); SSR, accountability and governance with specific inputs from the work of MINUSMA (GPPAC); the specific challenges for gender experts in multilateral missions (IDLO); and related to the role of multilateral missions in protection of civilians (PAX).  

‘Imagine we are 5 years ahead, and minister Ploumen will visit the twelve countries where the ARC projects will be implemented; what will she see, and will she be satisfied with what we have achieved?’ This question was posed during a talk show with the MFA’s special envoy on migration, Bram van Ojik, the MFA’s Director General of International Cooperation, and representatives of NGO’s from South-Sudan, Burundi and Pakistan.

With the talk show, the kick-off meeting of the Addressing Root Causes Fund on Monday the 20^th of June came to an end.

The ARC kick-off, organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and facilitated by the Platform, marks the start of a unique, five-year collaboration in which the MFA, together with 15 NGO’s and their partners, will work together to address root causes of violent conflict, instability and irregular migration.

Some 180 participants engaged in numerous breakout sessions with the view of getting to know each other, to explore key common challenges for program development under the ARC fund, and to exchange tools and approaches for effective partnerships and adaptive programming.

Progress on themes like rule of law and employment creation in conflict affected areas is often small and incredibly hard to measure. Special attention was therefore paid to the creation of a joint results framework, on which the organizations within ARC, as well as the Ministry, can report to the parliament and the Dutch public.

Jelte van Wieren, the MFA’s Director of Stability and Humanitarian Aid, emphasized in his opening speech: ‘For too long, development aid in Fragile and Conflict Affected States has been approached as if we, development actors, are the drivers on a train going from point of departure to point of destination. But I think we can all agree it has been more like a sailing trip on a boat - or an ark – planning to cross an unpredictable, stormy and dangerous ocean with an uncertain destination’.

To answer Bram’s question, Salome Zuriel, conflict thematic manager at ACORD, emphasized that in fragile contexts, it is hard to predict the extent to which our programs will contribute to stability after 5 years of engagement. The results framework we are about to develop however, might actually provide for the opportunity to attain concrete results in creating employment, enforcing rule of law or increasing physical human security. Today’s kick-off meeting was a first step in that direction.

The Platform hosted an interactive discussion on 23 June 2016 in The Hague, exploring the challenges and opportunities of measuring peace through indexes. The discussion, moderated by Rob Sijstermans of Clingendael, centered around three indexes; the Global Peace Index (GPI) by the Institute for Economics and Peace, the Flourishing Community Index (FCI) by Cordaid and the Fragile States Index (FSI) by The Fund for Peace, outlining the motivations behind their development, difficulties in the process and what these indexes have to offer to policy-making and program development in the field. Camilla Schippa, Director of the Institute for Economics & Peace officially launched the latest Global Peace Index at The Hague Institute for Global Justice the following morning.

Convening a group of practitioners from a range of fields, including the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the financial sector and mediation organizations, the discussion generated important insights into the value and pitfalls of indexing as a measure of peace.

Methodology

The three indexes all encountered questions over methodology. The Global Peace Index, as Camilla Schippa detailed, integrates indicator data from a variety of respected sources, such as SIPRI and various UN agencies as well as analysis from experts working with the Institute. The FSI employs a similar methodology. Conversely, the Flourishing Community Index compiles local community voices. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses that must be dealt with and explained to consumers. A related challenge for the indexes, Nate Haken, Senior Associate of The Fund for Peace explained, is the perception of the results among its target audiences. For the GPI and FSI, the rankings as a final product were controversial at face value. Officials from some states disagreed with the simple numerical comparison of their countries with others they felt were performing worse. A common problem is that consumers get hung up on rankings, failing to understand the indicators and analysis that inform indexes.

Crucial to resolving these concerns is to explain in detail the methodology behind the rankings, and to encourage consumers to delve into the indicators, and make their own comparisons. While each index offers valuable insights into differing indicators of communities, at the local or national level, the practitioners accentuated the need for transparency of process to avoid oversimplification of results. Additionally, argued Rosan Smits, Deputy Head of the Conflict Research Unit of Clingendael, indexes should not be the starting point in identifying watch lists or developing research and policy priorities.

Managing expectations

Expectations among surveyed individuals, practitioners and policy-makers on what indexes can achieve present another challenge. With FCI, explained Roderick Besseling of Cordaid, providing the opportunity for local communities to express grievances created expectations that these could be addressed. Similarly, Haken noted that while the FSI offers valuable insights, it does not offer solutions or practicable measures to address driving factors of conflict. Besseling and Haken both noted that creators of indexes grapple with the purpose of their measurements: is an index a forecasting tool? A grievance collection tool? A need-analysis tool? A tool to evaluate the progress resulting from programs? Without clearly defined goals and objectives, it is difficult to manage expectations and ensure value of indexes.

Main takeaways

The discussion proved that indexes are great advocacy tools, useful for starting the conversation in various fora and spurring deeper research into specific problems and underlying factors. Critical and comparative study of a variety of indexes can encourage more targeted research and policy work and may help to develop accurate early-warning conflict analysis, but should not be the be-all and end-all of measuring peace work. Takeaways for improving the usefulness of indexes were twofold. Firstly, further cooperation and integration of measuring efforts, be they more global indexes or more specific on-the-ground expertise, is crucial to providing the most informed and accurate picture to all stakeholders in the process. Secondly, increasing understanding of both the opportunities that indexes present and their limitations as tools for measuring peace will help all users improve their ability to extract value from the important insights that indexes produce.

In the process of building peace and justice, a series of connected injustices are worthy of increased attention. Justice tends to be thought about within the confines of rule of law and accountability. Yet justice is not dispensed but experienced, and failing to respond to injustice is to court conflict. As such, the event suggested we should grapple with the breadth of those experiences and meanings of justice across societies in order to build peace. This entails, it was felt, involving a wider array of actors in collaborative actions to help solve justice challenges.

In an attempt to begin that process, the expert roundtable organized by the Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law and Saferworld on 26th May gathered a mix of professionals in The Hague – some of whom may not usually work together. Building on an on-going expert blog series, participants spanned the fields of behavioral economics, private sector development, media, DDR, governance, rule of law, peacebuilding, youth, gender, urban planning and climate change.

Video clips from Bangladesh, Kenya, the United Kingdom, South Sudan and Armenia/Azerbaijan portrayed experiences of injustice that people encounter within their communities and how they impact on conflict dynamics. Although from different societies at distinct stages of conflict, the complexity, richness and indivisibility of perceptions of injustice is clear. However, the way in which these issues are understood and funded can sometimes belie that complexity, interpreting justice problems as simply rule of law issues. Rule of law is of course crucial, but should not become lazy short-hand for all justice work.

Participants therefore reflected on the peace and justice potential of putting equality and fairness at the center of political, economic, legal and social policy. Justice is not only a product generated by the state and formal institutions, but something that arises in everyday interactions.

The challenge is, therefore, to ensure that justice work addresses underlying causes rather than merely symptoms of conflict. By taking a problem solving approach to justice work, a much larger space for innovative approaches opens up, one that can harness the right blend and consortiums of different actors from different sectors. This might require a different taxonomy of what the most serious challenges are. If the peacebuilding and justice communities can embrace this breadth and put fairness and human rights at the center of their work, this would encourage us to question our default tendency to privilege addressing “crimes”, and instead focus on addressing interlinked justice problems and conflict drivers.

Keep an eye out on our website for a Saferworld position paper on avenues for how structural transformations across a range of interconnected fields might have a bearing on peace.