Monitoring aid implementation in conflict situations

Achieving development results through the provision of aid is challenging in any situation, but is challenging to the extreme in situations of conflict. Aid organisations have come up with innovative and pragmatic ways to carry out and monitor their activities nonetheless.

This short online study maps key practices of how donors monitor the implementation of activities funded by their aid in conditions of conflict. Combining a literature review, in-house expertise and key informant interviews (using Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia as case studies), the study develops a basic yardstick that donors can use to assess the monitoring designs of projects to be implemented in situations of conflict when they are making funding decisions. Specifically, the study explores how monitoring can help ensure that aid funds are correctly spent, that is, how monitoring takes account of the fiduciary and accountability risks of programme engagement in conflict settings, and identifies response mechanisms for when such risks arise.

This study was commissioned by the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as input for their review of the monitoring systems of three Dutch-funded projects in Syria (AJACS, the White Helmets and NLA) - and can be found here.