The story behind the picture

In my presentation to Mediation North’s November 2008 conference, I aimed to set out a simple framework to help community mediation services monitor, and then evaluate, and then assess the impact of, their conflict resolution activities.

The presentation itself – this version can be opened, with apologies for earlier difficulties – can be found at http://www.framework.org.uk/MODULES/NEWS/framework_NEWSmoduleASP/NEWSMOD_newsitem.asp?type=News&itemid=73

Civil wedding ceremony, Burundi 1996

The second slide of the presentation is a photograph of a civil wedding ceremony in Burundi in 1996. The couple are Quakers, and after the formal marriage they will head back to the Quaker church at Kibimba for a religious celebration.

I chose this photograph because it highlights so beautifully the complexity of conflict – and of trying to monitor and evaluate an organisation’s work.

The couple are Tutsis; the registrar on the right is a Hutu. As it happens, all three physically conform to the traditional stereotype of the conflict: the Tutsis are thinner, lither; the Hutu is of a stockier build. It’s important to note that these are stereotypes and I met people of all shapes and sizes from different ethnic backgrounds whilst I was working in Burundi.

What’s unusual for the stage of the conflict is that the official is a Hutu; at that time, most political jobs went to the ruling Tutsis – as did jobs in the army, police, civil service and other significant institutions. Out of sight, outdoors, are the soldiers who guarded every state building in Burundi. The soldiers are Tutsis, guarding their enemy – the Hutu official inside.

Thus the old quotation about intervening in conflict applies: if you think you understand what’s going on, you’ve not been paying enough attention.

From intervening in conflict, to judging whether we make a difference: the complexity remains. It can be easy to monitor the quality of an intervention – did we work effectively, did we help them explore the situation, did the intervention proceed as we’d intended? Less easy is to evaluate the difference we made: does everyone agree whether a full settlement was reached, and how did relationships change? Hardest of all – not least because it takes time to become visible – did we make a positive long-term impact on the people we worked with, on their conflict and on their community?

Each stage, monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment, requires a slightly different mindset and a different set of questions and tools to gather and assess evidence, and that is the detail contained in the plenary presentation.

Learning for effective practice

I was the plenary speaker at Mediation North’s autumn conference in November this year.

My intention was to help staff and practitioners be clear on the difference between monitoring, evaluation, and assessing impact – and to show how mediators can bring in the evidence that services need to show their success.

It was something of a risk to make a plenary speech on the subject of monitoring and evaluation!, so I was pleased with the positive feedback fom the plenary and from the subsequent workshop. If you want to download my powerpoint, please visit the Framework site – this is the link.

My sense was that people welcomed a structured framework in which to think about how they demonstrate effectiveness – and the slightly different mind-sets that are needed when approaching monitoring, evaluation, and impact.

A recent Charity Evaluation Service report stressed the importance of evaluating for learning, not just for accountability. This matches a theme close to my heart. How far can an external evaluation have as an outcome the development of the organisation’s capacity to monitor and evaluate itself?

In other words, how can the evaluation leave the organisation in a better place to continuing its self-assessment and learning? Here is a paper, Evaluation for learning, in which I have put some of these ideas together.

Zebra mediation

Note: This parable is not my own invention; I’d be pleased to hear if anyone knows the author’s identity. Please post a comment if you want a mathematical explanation of the solution.

A great chieftain had died, leaving his herd of seventeen zebras to his three daughters. According to the chieftain’s will, one daughter was to have half of the herd; the next daughter got one-third; and the third daughter one-ninth. These proportions don’t divide very well into seventeen zebras, and the sisters were at loggerheads.

A mediator came by, leading her own zebra. “Would you like to add my zebra to the herd to help resolve the dispute?”, she asked.

Now with eighteen zebras, one daughter could take half – nine zebras; the next daughter took her six zebras (one-third), and the third daughter her one-ninth share, two zebras. Nine plus six plus two means seventeen zebras, and everyone was happy.

“Could I have my zebra back please?”, the mediator asked, and went on her way.

Moral: the mediator brings the process (her zebra). The parties use the process to get what they want, and the process moves on to the next conflict.