Supernatural Belief and the Evaluation of Faith-based Peacebuilding

December 2016 | David Steele, and Ricardo Wilson-Grau

Citation and Acknowledgments

Steele, David, and Ricardo Wilson-Grau. “Supernatural Belief and the Evaluation of Faith-based Peacebuilding.” Briefing Paper. The Peacebuilding Evaluation Consortium, 2016.

Four people graciously peer reviewed a draft of this paper: Cynthia Clapp-Wincek, Isabella Jean, Michelle Garred and Peter Woodrow. They commented and made suggestions in their personal not institutional capacities. The paper is enriched by their contributions but the final content is solely our responsibility.

The Peacebuilding Evaluation Consortium

The Peacebuilding Evaluation Consortium (PEC) is a project of Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP) in partnership with CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, Mercy Corps and Search for Common Ground (SFCG). The project is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) and is field-wide effort to address the unique challenges to measuring and learning from peacebuilding programs. The PEC convenes donors, scholars, policymakers, local and international practitioners, and evaluation experts in an unprecedented open dialogue, exchange, and joint learning. It seeks to address the root causes of weak evaluation practices and disincentives for better learning by fostering field-wide change through three strategic and reinforcing initiatives: 1) Developing Methodological Rigor; 2) Improving the Culture of Evaluation and Shared Learning; and 3) Fostering the Use of Evidence to Inform Peacebuilding Policy.

About the Authors

David Steele is an ordained Christian pastor and Adjunct Lecturer at the Heller School’s Graduate Program in Coexistence and Conflict at Brandeis University. He has over 20 years’ experience working with political, religious, and other civil society actors to effectively facilitate conflict transformation and interfaith coexistence within unstable, violence-prone situations of inter-ethnic and sectarian conflict.

Ricardo Wilson-Grau is an independent, non-theist, areligious evaluator with experience evaluating Jewish, Lutheran, Quaker and Roman Catholic, as well as secular, peacebuilding. Since 2003, he has concentrated his work on the evaluation of innovative projects and programs of international development donor agencies, networks and associations, NGOs, community-based organizations, research institutes, and government.

 

Featured Projects