Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisor USAID Nairobi, Kenya
When USAID Somalia wrote its country strategy for 2020-2025, it emphasized the importance of addressing the conditions that allow violent extremism to take root and spread. This resulted in a complex approach that focuses on multiple interventions to address communities’ grievances arising from poor governance, lack of justice, and exclusion from political, social, and economic opportunities. USAID recognized that traditional approaches to evaluations were not appropriate. USAID needed an approach that captured key aspects of development challenges in a complex and dynamic operating environment. USAID needed an approach that responded to the following challenges: 1. Absence of a shared measurement approach for P/CVE. 2. Limited understanding and use of evidence-based theories of change to articulate activity logic and contribution to results in P/CVE programs. This limited USAID’s ability to test assumptions and interrogate which types of interventions are most effective in addressing the conditions that allow violent extremism to take root and spread 3. Limited timely, targeted, gender-sensitive analysis of contextual dynamics that can inform program and strategic level decision-making. USAID will share its experience using a different lens to better tell the story of how its activities are measuring and addressing the conditions that allow violent extremism to take root and spread.
