Evaluation of Muslim Women’s Research and Action Front (MWRAF)
Client: Facilitating Local Initiatives for Conflict Transformation (FLICT)
Duration: September to November 2008

MWRAF has been working in Ampara District on activities that promote peace and coexistence since 1997. MWRAF’s inter and intra-religious peace-building project was created to influence religious leaders because of their natural role as potential peace builders with strong community acceptance and respect. The project addresses conflicts and disagreements stemming from different interpretations of religious teachings and practices, and the activities supported by FLICT form the first phase of a long term peace-building engagement.
As was the case with the evaluation of the Future Peace Youth Network, projects that are seeking to create attitudinal or behavioural change are notoriously difficult to evaluate. When a project uses religion to create these changes, it is dealing with deeply held beliefs and practices. In addition to the complexity linked with religion and religious belief it is important to also acknowledge that the project was working in a challenging environment that has been affected by conflict for many years and is multi-ethnic and multi-religious. Also, the existence of other peace-building activities makes it difficult to attribute changes to the project.
Within this complex environment, MWRAF also addresses a conflict that is not always immediately apparent. The intra-religious disagreements among different groups within the Muslim community is a contentious area and there was also some resistance because new ideas about intra-religious understanding were being brought out by a group that largely comprised women. The changes that took place as a result of the inter-religious peace building activities were easier to identify but here too there were many vested interests that did not wish to see their power base eroded.
Despite the difficulties the evaluation found that MWRAF was on track to achieving their objectives and recommended that longer term support from FLICT would enable them to consolidate their results.

Evaluation of the Future Peace Youth Network
Client: Future Peace Youth Network
Duration: February to April 2008

The Poverty and Conflict team was able to use the expertise it had developed on impact monitoring of peace building projects through engagement with Facilitating Local Initiatives for Conflict Transformation (FLICT) training, to evaluate the impact of the Future Peace Youth Networks in Trincomalee, Anuradhapura, Galle and Matara. Future Peace activities are mainly focused on bringing about attitudinal and behavioural changes among the youth. This evaluation challenged measuring these kinds of intangible changes and provided a good opportunity to test and apply the outcome mapping technique devised specifically for capturing behavioural changes.

The Impact of Humanitarian Aid/Development Funding Distribution on Local Community Relations and Horizontal Inequalities: Ensuring Aid Effectiveness.
Supported by the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE)
Duration: September 2008 to November 2009

This research seeks to explore how humanitarian aid or development funding distribution interacts or contributes to the social dynamics of areas where aid projects are being implemented. The study is being carried out in Sri Lanka parallel to a similar study in Indonesia. CEPA is working with CRISE researchers on examining the impact of the Sri Lankan humanitarian aid programmes implemented in regions which have experienced conflict and the tsunami. The 2008 research uses a mixed methodology: a 1000 household quantitative survey (the largest CEPA has attempted to date) and qualitative interviews. The assignment has also provided an opportunity for the PAM team, with its expertise in quantitative analysis, to work together with PAC that is bringing the qualitative field experience and conflict background in this study. The CRISE study has opened up space to increase CEPA’s visibility within wider academic circles.
Data collection has been completed and the initial analysis is being undertaken parallel to the Indonesian study, with constant feedback from the CRISE team. Given the volatile and ever-changing context in the East and the sensitive nature of some of the data that was gathered, this study has increased CEPA’s understanding of appropriate data gathering and analytical tools.
Among the initial impressions from the study, the underlying tensions between the Muslim and Tamil communities in the East, the massive changes and disparities brought on by the tsunami funds, and the delays in resettlement of conflict affected IDPs due to security restrictions are surfacing as reasons for inequalities and rising tensions in the region. The deeper analysis will continue into 2009.

Lessons Learnt on Poverty Alleviation and Conflict Transformation in Sri Lanka
Client: GTZ
Duration: September to December 2008

The study aimed to generate organisational and conceptual lessons about the nexus between poverty reduction and conflict transformation from examining the experience of projects that began with one objective (i.e. poverty reduction) and had the conflict transformation objective thrust upon them. The study looked at some selected GTZ supported projects that were working in conflict and tsunami affected areas. This study brought out clearly that conflict transformation cannot be handled as a separate activity but should be mainstreamed and internalised in project design and delivery.

Making Peace Keeping Peace
Supported by The European Union (EU)
Duration: October 2006 to April 2009

By the end of 2008, CEPA concluded the study titled ‘ Making Peace Keeping Peace’ in the District of Puttalam. The study developed an understanding of how the different ethnic communities in Puttalam manage conflict, what institutions assist communities to do so, and what lessons other communities can learn from these experiences. The area under study had many factors that could lead to conflict but the communities have managed to maintain a relative ‘peace’ using local knowledge and local conflict management mechanisms. The Making Peace, Keeping Peace study is a consequence of CEPA’s earlier work on post-conflict justice. This work showed that conflict affected communities do not think of justice as requiring a formal legal process but consider their issues to be a series of problems that can be addressed through more community based institutions. It was this finding that led CEPA’s Poverty and Conflict team to explore community based mechanisms further in this study. It identified different local conflict resolution mechanisms that have evolved out of the conflict environment in Puttalam. One of the key findings is that strengthening existing mechanisms, rather than creating new institutions or introducing new techniques, has worked out well in this case. As a result of this study CEPA has built strong relationships with grassroots level institutions working in Puttalam district that have been mutually beneficial. The knowledge and experiences acquired in Puttalam can perhaps be shared and applied in the East, particularly in Ampara and Trincomalee, which also have a multi-ethnic composition.

Peace and Conflict Timeline – PACT
Supported by World Bank Post Conflict Fund
Duration: ongoing

In May 2008, the Peace and Conflict Timeline (PACT) project was launched with a new look. The project was developed as a participatory initiative to help those with an interest in the Sri Lankan conflict gain a deeper understanding of the conflict’s roots, manifestation and trajectory and to promote discussion around events, themes and experiences of peace and conflict related events.

PACT is linked to various websites as a resource on the Sri Lankan conflict, including UNHCR, groundviews, Sahajeevana Centre, Communication Initiative, Global Voices Online, ICT for Peacebuilding (ICT4Peace), the New Communications Review, and various sections of wikipedia. PACT is highly optimized for a range of search engine terms on the Sri Lanka conflict.

Monthly traffic to the site has doubled and the site receives just under 4,000 visitors per month. Judging by the statistics, the number of websites to which PACT is linked and the use of PACT’s content as evidence and sources, the project’s is clearly a resource that many researchers turn to on information about Sri Lanka.

PACT’s has also made inroads in stimulating discussion amongst its users, especially through it ‘features’ focusing on critical events and themes. In 2008, these included features on Black July 1983, the 18th anniversary of the Muslim expulsion of 1990 and a discussion on activism in Sri Lanka. Further, narratives from the team’s applied research projects (including Moving out of Poverty in Conflict Affected Areas -2006, Making Peace, Keeping Peace -2008) fed into PACT in connection with significant events on the timeline.

PACT now also boasts audio and visual content including a ‘Turning Points’ section illustrated with photographs from conflict history. PACT’s YouTube and Vimeo channels have been set up for current and future audio visual material expected under the World Bank’s Post Conflict Fund grant in 2009.

PACT has received plaudits including an award for its innovative use of new media from Society for New Communications Review (SNCR), a US-based think tank.

Praise for PACT:
“PACT is a must for any researcher on our conflict and is one of those sites that really should be put as a shortcut on the desktops of PCs in libraries and cyber-cafes, so that people actually get to know of it and use it. PACT is a historical narrative that comes alive through new media”
Sanjana Hattotuwa, ICT for Peacebuilding (ICT4Peace), 17 May 2008.