CHAPTER 4: FIELD STUDY USAID/WEST BANK GAZA PEOPLE-TO- PEOPLE RECONCILIATION ANNUAL PROGRAM STATEMENT GRANTS Evaluative Learning Review: Field Study USAID/West Bank Gaza People-to-People Reconciliation Annual Program Statement Grants This publication was produced for USAIDs Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation in Washington, D.C. and the USAID/West BanK Gaza Mission under Contract No. AID-OAA-TO-11-00046. It was produced by Ned Lazarus, Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana, Maya Kahanoff, and Fakhira Halloun of Social Impact. The authors views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development nor the United States Government. 127 Evaluative Learning Review: Field Study USAID/West BanK Gaza People-to-People Reconciliation Annual Program Statement Grants This document (Report No. AID-OAA-TO-11-00046) is available through the Development Experience Clearing House (http://dec.usaid.gov). Additional information can be obtained from: Social Impact, Inc. 2300 Clarendon Boulevard, Suite 1000 Arlington, VA, 22201 Tel: (703) 465-1884 Fax: (703) 465-1888 Photo Source: Ned Lazarus, SI Team Leader. Developmental Evaluative Learning Review: Synthesis Report Field Study USAID/West Bank Gaza People-to-People Reconciliation Annual Program Statement Grants 128 Acknowledgements This evaluation was made possible through the assistance of many people who contributed to planning, fieldwork, data collection, analysis, and final report writing. The evaluation team would liKe to recognize individuals and organizations whose contributions were instrumental to maKing this effort a success. The team would like to thank David Hunsicker and Rebekah Krimmel, the Contracting Officers Representatives from CMM, who provided guidance in Washington and accompanied us in the Middle East, making crucial contributions to the project at all stages. The team would also like to thank the staff of the USAID/West Bank Gaza Mission offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and the US Embassy in Tel Aviv for receiving us graciously, and taking time to provide us with valuable information and direction in the field. In addition, the team would like to thank the former USAID Mission Director, Mike Harvey, for his time and insight. Additionally, the team would like to recognize CMMs admirable spirit of reflective practice and self-scrutiny evidenced by commissioning and supporting this evaluation. We are grateful to Kelly Heindel Skeith, Mathias Kjaer, Gabrielle Plotkin, and Lee Briggs of Social Impact, Inc., for their collegiality and comprehensive support through the entire evaluation process. We also wish to thank Cate Broussard and Justin Guo for their important voluntary contributions to data analysis and drafting, and Aya Manaa, our team logistician, for her dedication in providing the team with essential logistical and administrative support in the field. Finally, we would like to thank the Palestinian and Israeli directors and staff of more than two dozen APS-funded projects, whom we met in the course of our research. They were open and generous with us at every turn, sharing their time and decades worth of experience and expertise. It is our hope that our work here will contribute, in a meaningful way, to theirs. Developmental Evaluative Learning Review: Synthesis Report Field Study USAID/West Bank Gaza People-to-People Reconciliation Annual Program Statement Grants 129 Acronyms APS Annual Program Statement ATC Anti-Terror Certification CMM USAID Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation CRS Catholic Relief Services CSO Civil Society Organization DE Developmental Evaluation DNH Do No Harm FOG Fixed Obligation Grant FY Financial Year IWBG Israel/West Bank/Gaza M&E Monitoring and Evaluation NGO Non-Governmental Organization OHR Office of the High Representative P2P People-to-People PA Palestinian Authority PACBI Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel SI Social Impact, Inc. SOW Scope of Work ToC Theory of Change USAID United States Agency for International Development Developmental Evaluative Learning Review: Synthesis Report Field Study USAID/West Bank Gaza People-to-People Reconciliation Annual Program Statement Grants 130 Executive Summary Introduction Since 2004, the United States Agency for International Developments (USAID) Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM) in Washington has held an annual Reconciliation Program Fund small-grants competition through an Annual Program Statement (APS). The Fund is a Congressional appropriation to support local-level people-to-people (P2P) conflict mitigation and reconciliation programs, and has grown from an initial award pool of $8 million to $26 million annually, with $10 million specifically allocated for programs in Israel/West Bank/Gaza (IWBG). To date, the APS has supported over 135 peacebuilding projects in 35 countries. Grants range from $500,000 to $1.2 million for projects of 12-36 months in duration; smaller Fixed Obligation Grants (FOGs) also offer up to $100,000 for short-term projects.57 As defined in CMMs People-to-People Peacebuilding: A Program Guide, P2P reconciliation programs operate based on the Theory of Change (ToC) that in communities where elites or other societal forces have damaged or severed the relationships connecting individuals and groups of differing ethnic, political, religious, or other identities strong, positive relationships will mitigate against the forces of dehumanization, stereotyping, and distancing that facilitate violence.58 APS projects generally bring together individuals of different ethnic, religious, or political affiliations from areas of conflict. They provide opportunities for adversaries to address issues, reconcile differences, promote greater understanding and mutual trust, and work on common goals with regard to potential, ongoing, or recently ended conflict. Project Descriptions In the IWBG region, the APS program has distributed $42.7 million worth of grants since 2004, to fund 60 P2P projects implemented by 42 different organizations, reaching tens of thousands of beneficiaries. Projects selected employ a wide range of intervention approaches and engage a variety of target populations, reflecting the diversity of the Israeli/Palestinian peacebuilding field and CMMs pluralistic definition of P2P work.59 Grantee approaches range from civil society activism, dialogue, economic development, education, empowerment of youth, women and minorities, environmental peacebuilding, human rights and issue advocacy, media, psychosocial work and trauma healing, research, sport, and technological cooperation. 57 CMM Annual Program Statement Call for Proposals 2012 (henceforth APS FY 2012); Important APS Milestones, draft document provided to evaluation team by CMM. 58 People-to-People Peacebuilding: A Program Guide, USAID/DCHA/CMM (January 2011), p. 5 (henceforth P2P Program Guide). 59 There is no single solution to resolving violent conflict. (P2P Program Guide, p. 7) Developmental Evaluative Learning Review: Synthesis Report Field Study USAID/West Bank Gaza People-to-People Reconciliation Annual Program Statement Grants 131 Evaluation Purpose Beginning in the fall of 2011, Social Impact, Inc. (SI) began a two-year Evaluative Learning Review of targeted awards and activities under APS. The objectives of this review are not only to learn about the APS programs themselves, but also to build CMMs technical leadership in evaluation of complex programs through a pilot application of the developmental evaluation methodology. CMM APS managers commissioned this IWBG field evaluation as the first of three separate regional evaluations designed to inform a two-year Evaluative Learning Review of the global APS programthe second evaluation took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina in December 2012, and the third in Burundi during summer 2013. The primary purpose for these field evaluations is to advance CMM and broader Agency learning about how to effectively design, implement, and manage APS-type projects in the future. They are intended to analyze how program designs and implementation respond to significant contextual factors and conflict drivers in order to inform more responsive and relevant grant making in the future. The primary audience for this evaluation report is CMM, but the target audience also includes the local USAID Mission, local APS grantees, and scholars and practitioners of peacebuilding. Research Methods and Evaluation Questions/Areas of Inquiry Evaluation design and conduct were guided by the principles of Developmental Evaluation (DE), an approach designed to inform and support innovative and adaptive development in complex, dynamic environments.60 As such, DE is well suited to the study of Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding initiatives during a period of profound political upheaval in the Middle East. DE provides conceptual lenses for focused inquiry rather than prescribing research methods; in particular, DE demands attention to a projects ongoing development within a context defined by emergence, nonlinearity and dynamism. The evaluation team employed traditional qualitative methodsinterviews, focus groups, and site visits during the initial field phase, and a survey distributed following fieldwork in order to validate preliminary findings and conclusions. Analytically, the team focused on identifying salient themes regarding four primary areas of inquiry: x The contemporary context of P2P peacebuilding work in IWBG and features limiting or potentially enhancing project impact; x Successful