Better Evidence Project
Better Evidence Project
Much peacebuilding work is done with little or no hard evidence that it should be expected to be cost-effective. As a result, the efforts of the peacebuilding community have not succeeded in stemming the trend toward increasing armed conflict. To develop evidence that will be useful to donors and practitioners in deciding where and how to allocate their resources for best results, the Better Evidence Project (BEP) was established at George Mason University (GMU) in 2020. It will encourage and support research to develop such evidence.
To begin its collaboration with leaders in the field, BEP convened an initial workshop where over 30 leaders in the field to consider how to initiate the needed research. The participants recommended that "indicators" and "locally-led peacebuilding" should be given priority as subjects to be studied. BEP has circulated RFPs for research in these areas. In addition, BEP will also welcome proposals for mini-research projects for $5-10,000 each to produce useful evidence about cost-effectiveness of peacebuilding activities.
BEP plans to establish a "hub" for research on peacebuilding effectiveness at GMU. It will facilitate collaboration to support and perform research to provide solid evidence about what is and is not effective. It will collect, maintain, and make available useful information on the subject for the peacebuilding community.
Better evidence about resource allocation should enable the peacebuilding community to achieve more significant results in 5 or 10 years.
For more information, see the Better Evidence Project website.