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Stabilisation - Part 4 - Learning the right lessons
There is much talk about learning the lessons from stabilisation efforts and applying them in other contexts. However, I am concerned that the lessons that have been learned are based on a rather limited set of ‘case studies’ – largely Afghanistan and Iraq, plus some of Sierra Leone and then reaching back, experiences in the Balkans in the 1990s. Much more needs to be done to assess whether what has worked (or not) in these contexts is really applicable in other contexts and how it might transfer. Otherwise there is a real risk of assuming that what works in Afghanistan will be appropriate for the next stabilisation mission, wherever that might be.
Related to this, we don’t just need to learn lessons from previous interventions, we actually have to use them to inform future policy-making. In one way, this goes well beyond stabilisation alone and is all about the culture of government and of politics, and how receptive decision-makers are to requesting, reviewing and acting on the lessons of previous experiences.
Perhaps the hardest lesson of all, however, will be to get better at defining what we mean by the ‘success’ of a stabilisation activity, and measuring this success. In a climate of falling budgets, there is an understandable focus on value-for-money and ensuring that limited taxpayers’ money is spent appropriately. However, different agencies have very different language and expectations when defining and measuring success – let alone how success is perceived by the mass media or the public at large. It is essential to avoid simplistic and unattainable definitions of success. But nobody is quite sure what a detailed set of measures for success would look like. And when should they be measured? How long does a situation have to be ‘stable’ for before the risk of further instability can be discounted and a stabilisation intervention can be declared a success – and how does this fit with short-term funding cycles and pressures?
As usual, there are no easy answers to these questions, but better monitoring and evaluation is part of the answer. Saferworld has been working on this topic for several years (see our Evaluating for Security and Justice report), and we will return to the topic of lessons learning and measuring success on this blog in the future.
Henry Smith
Director
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