Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning on Interfaith Cooperation: Lessons Learned in Five Interfaith Programs

Publication date: February 2025

Suggested Citation: Alliance for Peacebuilding, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning on Interfaith Cooperation: Lessons Learned in Five Interfaith Programs, February 2025.

The purpose of this research was to assess the effectiveness of interfaith cooperation programming across the peacebuilding landscape. This report explored the general characteristics of five interfaith cooperation programs – including explicit indicators, common measurement trends, and indicator examples – to determine what these interfaith cooperation programs were seeking to change, how they sought to do it, how they measured their success, and the degree of confidence in which we hold the reliability of the indicator. This report curated and analyzed reports covering five programs related to interfaith cooperation, using their evaluation reports. From the reports, we extracted and analyzed a total of 104 indicators.

Through this exercise, AfP found that interfaith cooperation programs use a range of thematic indicators to measure how interfaith trust and cooperation is built. Indicators mostly measured success of programs measuring the quality of inter-group relationships, knowledge of other groups and general capacity-building within the communities. This research – while limited due to the number of documents reviewed – lays a promising foundation for measuring interfaith cooperation programming, highlighting potential avenues for future inquiry.

The findings highlight the importance of continuing to develop and validate definitions, theories of change (ToCs), indicators, and program approaches. To advance the field, further research on compounding crises of social inequities, preexisting social conflicts and historical harm could deepen understanding of which interventions can positively impact inter-group relations. The process applied in the analysis of the five initial program evaluations could be utilized for a larger pool of program evaluations.