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Update from the Nepal Partnership on Children and Youth in Peacebuilding: Process for a Successful Participatory Evaluation

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Author, Copyright Holder: Shiva Dhungana

THE HISTORY:

In Nepal over 60% of the population are children and youth aged 0-29 years. As the nation continues to recover from the decade long (1996-2006) armed conflict between the then Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Government of Nepal (GoN), the challenge and opportunity for Nepal is to engage the youth population in the peacebuilding process. The Nepalese Civil War adversely affected children and youths’ education, livelihoods, family care, survival, protection and well-being. Children and youth were both victims and actors in the civil war with more than 3000 children under the age of 18 years and considerable numbers of youth being recruited (some forcefully, some by choice) to join armed groups.

THE CURRENT PEACEBUILDING CONTEXT:

Efforts to combat the serious negative effects of conflict on youth have been led by international and national organizations; these organizations are supporting children and youth participation in peacebuilding efforts, particularly at the community and district level. The efforts of youth groups and their supporters include:

  • Building children and youths’ skills in conflict analysis, peacebuilding, non-violent communication and leadership;
  • Increasing children and youth participation in radio programmes on peacebuilding and other media peacebuilding initiatives;
  • Using sports to promote peace (to learn more about Sport for Peace programs, read this DME for Peace blog on the challenges of evaluation youth and sports peacebuilding programs);
  • Strengthening livelihood and income generation opportunities for youth (including youth who were affected by conflict or formerly associated with armed groups); and
  • Supporting children and youth participation in Constitutional development processes, policy developments, local and national governance processes concerning them.

THE PROJECT:

The Global Partnership for Children and Youth in Peacebuilding was formed in 2012, and in 2014 a Steering Team for a 3M (multi-agency, multi-country, multi-donor) Evaluation of Children and Youth Participation in Peacebuilding was established. Steering Team members include: PATRIR, Save the Children Norway, Search for Common Ground, the United Network of Young Peacebuilders and World Vision, each of these organizations brings experience in and commitment to engaging children and youth in peacebuilding. The group is actively engaged in evaluating the quality and impact of children and youth’s participation in peacebuilding initiatives in Nepal, DRC and Colombia, and to identify recommendations to strengthen the implementation of such initiatives in the future and produce better results.

In September of 2014 the Nepal Partnership for Children and Youth in Peacebuilding (CYPP) was formed as a national arm of the global partnership. CYPP Nepal aims to connect district level youth organizations to the national and international organizations supporting the initiative. It includes Search for Common Ground, Save the Children, World Vision, Alliance for Peace, Jagriti Child and Youth Concern Nepal, and Youth Peace and Development Network Mahottari. The Nepal partnership is responsible for supporting the participatory evaluation process in Nepal and linking it to the global evaluation.

THE PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION APPROACH:

The entire evaluation process is guided by the participatory evaluation approach - a partnership approach to evaluation - in which children and youth from four chosen districts take an active leadership role in designing and implementing the evaluation with the help of locally rooted CSOs and evaluation experts. They participate in identifying relevant questions, planning the evaluation design, selecting appropriate measures and data collection methods gathering, and analyzing data. The children and youth constitute the actual evaluation team.

The evaluation is applying mixed evaluation methods encompassing qualitative and quantitative data collection including use of:

  • An online mapping of children and youth in peacebuilding across Nepal;
  • Use of participatory evaluation methods by local evaluation teams made up of children, youth and adult Evaluators in four diverse districts of Nepal namely: Doti, Mahottari, Nawalparassi, and Rolpa; and
  • In-depth evaluation of quality and impact in four to six case studies of CYPP. The evaluation is being carried out from December 2014 to June 2105.

As part of the evaluation process, a national capacity building workshop brought together 32 children and youth (17 male and 15 female) from the four districts. The workshop familiarized the selected youth with participatory evaluation processes and techniques so that the workshop participants could collect data for the evaluation in their respective districts. In order to garner the support of the district authorities for the project, a District Advisory Committee has been formed consisting of representatives of District Administration, Police, District Development Committee (Local Development Officer), Village Development Committee Secretary, Local Peace Committee and Women and Children Office.

The workshop identified Body Mapping and Timelines as essential tools, and Pots and Stones as a secondary tool for data collection during the evaluation (for more details on these and other tools for youth participation, DME for Peace recommends Save the Children’s, “Toolkit for Monitoring and Evaluating Children’s Participation”). The workshop also collected stories, poems, essays and drawings to showcase the children and youth’s participation in peacebuilding.

WHAT WILL THE PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION ACHIEVE?:

The aims of the evaluation are:

  • To map and understand who is doing what and where to support CYPP;
  • To nurture partnerships supporting collaborative efforts increasing the quantity, quality and impact of CYPP;
  • To assess CYPP quality and impact; and
  • To present CYPP recommendations to global partnership, respective national governments and other organizations and agencies working for children and youth.

Children, youth and adult members of the Local Evaluation Teams will come together to participate in a National Data Analysis and Reflection Workshop in April 2015 to reflect on the data gathered at respective districts. The Local Evaluation Team, technically supported by National Evaluator and Global Evaluator, will develop the Nepal Evaluation Report. The report developed out of the evaluation work will be shared locally, nationally and globally.

For further information about the Nepal Partnership for Children and Youth in Peacebuilding please contact Nepal Partnership Coordinator Prativa Rai: prai@sfcg.org.