The following key issues should be kept in mind in the process of conflict sensitising a monitoring or evaluation process:

a) monitoring and evaluation are typically extractive processes, as interviewers take information from respondents and offer little in direct return. Conflict-sensitive monitoring and evaluation can also be an extractive process, or it can be more transformative. By involving respondents in the process of indicator development and analysis, monitors and evaluators can help people understand their own place in – and possibly even their contribution to – a given context. Transformative processes can potentially produce positive results; however, they involve risks similar to those outlined in step 2.3 (collect information) above, but with potentially more serious consequences

b) as with everything in this Resource Pack, the emphasis is on conflict-sensitising existing programmatic processes, rather than developing entirely new ones. For monitoring and evaluation, this means conflict-sensitising all existing steps in the process, from the design to reporting and beyond. The process of conflict-sensitising monitoring and evaluation will require additional resources. For instance, organisational and institutional support for increased staff capacity development will be needed (see Chapter 5). Sufficient time to review and adjust existing tools and processes, as well as additional time to monitor or evaluate conflict and interaction indicators will also be essential

c) there is sometimes a tendency in monitoring and evaluating to underestimate the importance of the profile, actors, causes and dynamics that function at other levels. A village-focused intervention may, for example, not consider the implication of national actors (eg political parties) or international dynamics (eg the foreign policies of other governments) on the local context. Alternatively, some monitors and evaluators will focus almost entirely on the macro context, and in particular on the macro political context, by emphasizing the activities and statements of warring factions, while ignoring the contribution made to conflict dynamics at the local level. Understanding the context as it is expressed at various different geographic scales is fundamental to understanding the context at the level the intervention is taking place

d) conflict-sensitive recommendations may prove challenging for staff within organisations, as well as within the institutional funding chain, as they require a different understanding of success. Organisations (and, if relevant, their funders) typically measure activities and outputs, such as number of houses built, number of wells dug, number of participants attending a meeting, rather than impact. A conflict-sensitive organisation will also want to place a high value on its projects’ interactions with the context. Thus, a project that underperforms on the anticipated number of houses built may, from a conflict sensitive perspective, still be considered a success if it contributed positively to conflict dynamics. Given that the definition of a successful project can be controversial, organisations may have difficulty in valuing an under-performing conflict-sensitive project over a well-performing project that unintentionally exacerbates conflict (see Box 3). Enhancing the way an organisation understands success requires an institutional willingness and ability to think differently about how it measures impact. (See Chapter 5).