Localized Peace, Global Application Gaps, Challenges, and the Path Forward for Peacebuilding

During the 2025 Fall semester, AfP partnered with students in the American University School of International Service to produce research on two interconnected research tracks exploring critical gaps and opportunities in locally-led peacebuilding: (1) examining the perspectives of community and local leaders on what barriers exist and what changes are needed for locally-led peacebuilding to succeed; and (2) investigating how development, philanthropy, and policy leaders perceive the challenges and future pathways for locally-led approaches. Through a literature review and interviews, the students authored the following report, including recommendations for peacebuilders, funders, and international NGOs.

Learning and EvaluationMaria TataMay 8, 2026AfP

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

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.

Learning and EvaluationEmily SampleSeptember 23, 2025AfP

Monitoring Dialogue in Conflict-Affected Contexts: Guide for Practitioners

At a time of increasing conflict around the globe and uncertainty about resources for peace efforts, developing robust evidence of dialogue effectiveness is needed to demonstrate dialogue’s impact and value. This guide, developed over several years with the input of numerous colleagues and partners, merges theoretical insights with practical tools to present an innovative dialogue monitoring approach designed to help practitioners and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) professionals identify and track meaningful progress made by dialogue programs in conflict-affected contexts. It supports a shift toward more systematic, evidence-based monitoring practices necessary to document the complexities and impacts of a diverse range of dialogues.

This guide can also be a resource for funders and implementing organizations as they strive to increase accountability for the design and implementation of effective dialogue programs. Learning at an organizational level requires a shared framework to analyze comparable data across diverse programming contexts and interventions. This guide will encourage the kind of comparable data collection needed to enable peacebuilders to better assess and document dialogue outcomes in more standardized ways. By helping funders and implementers gather and analyze data about dialogue outcomes across programs and types of interventions, the guide will facilitate the assessment of intervention effectiveness and identify areas for growth.

The purpose of this guide is to:

Equip dialogue practitioners to monitor dialogue projects;
Facilitate project- and organizational-level adaptation and learning about dialogue program implementation; and
Contribute to evaluation and scholarly study of dialogue practice and effectiveness by developing the evidence base for tracking contributions of dialogue to peaceful conflict resolution.

LEARNING AND EVALUATION

Learning and EvaluationEmily SampleAugust 5, 2025AfP

Guiding Standards for Peacebuilding Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation

The American University Conflict Mitigation and Peacebuilding Practicum team partnered with Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP) to explore the challenges of measuring progress in the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16) and potential lessons for the design of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Learning and EvaluationGuest UserMarch 5, 2025AfP

Filling in the Gaps: Progress and Backsliding in Sustainable Development Goal 16 Indicators

The American University Conflict Mitigation and Peacebuilding Practicum team partnered with Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP) to explore the challenges of measuring progress in the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16) and potential lessons for the design of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Learning and EvaluationGuest UserMarch 27, 2023AfP

Assessing the State of U.S. Democracy, Rule of Law, and social cohesion

This report presents findings from 160+ leading peacebuilding and conflict experts to the Assessing the State of Democracy, Rule of Law, and Social Cohesion in the U.S. survey conducted by the Alliance for Peacebuilding between November 2021 – January 2022.

Learning and EvaluationAfP AdminDecember 15, 2022AfP

Key themes from digital workshop on Building Evidence Based Practice in Peacebuilding

The Alliance for Peacebuilding, Better Evidence Project, and One Earth Future organized a Digital Workshop to promote collaboration among global peacebuilding practitioners on advancing the field’s evidence-based practice. Alliance for Peacebuilding’s Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik and One Earth Future’s Conor Seyle presented findings from their recently released report: Some Credible Evidence: Perceptions about the Evidence Base in the Peacebuilding Field. Here are key themes from the event.

Learning and EvaluationAfP AdminMay 24, 2021AfP, IRPB

Some Credible Evidence: Perceptions about the Evidence Base in the Peacebuilding Field

This report presents the result of a survey conducted by One Earth Future and Alliance for Peacebuilding asking peacebuilders and researchers about their perception of what kind of evidence exists and what kind is needed to improve work in the peacebuilding field.

Learning and EvaluationAfP AdminMay 12, 2021AfP