Monitoring and evaluation in police capacity building operations: ‘women as uniform?’

Abstract

The monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of police capacity building operations is becoming increasingly important as the international agenda expands to sustainable peace building. This paper argues that M&E practice in police capacity building inherently impacts upon the effectiveness of reform. Accordingly, we critically analyse the utilisation of conventional M&E approaches. We apply this critical analysis to the issue of gender‐sensitive reform, as an example of the social aspects of police capacity building operations – illustrating the dangers of crude ‘objective’ measurements in complex social change processes. In conclusion we propose the incorporation of participatory approaches in the M&E of police capacity building.

Keywords:

• monitoring and evaluation
• police reform
• capacity building
• local ownership
• gender‐sensitive reform
• participation

Acknowledgements

This paper was written based on research being undertaken for a joint project of the University of Queensland's Institute for Social Research Centre and the Australian Federal Police, ‘Building Peace and Stability: Measuring Effectiveness of Peace and Capacity Building Operations.’ The authors thank the Australian Federal Police for their ongoing support and the considerable time members have taken to share information and discuss ideas. The views in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the project or the project contributors or supporters. The authors wish to sincerely thank Professor Paul Boreham (ISSR) for his support, patience, and advice, as well as the project Director, Professor Alexander J. Bellamy (UQ).

Notes

1. Peter Morgan has worked as a consultant and prepared papers for a range of development organisations particularly on the subject of capacity and M&E, including: AusAID, CIDA, ECDPM, OECD, UNDP, etc.

2. For a more detailed discussion of the strengths and weaknesses see forthcoming papers (J. Curth – details of which to be published @ http://www.uq.edu.au/idg-international-policing/).

3. The degree of consultation varies between donors and projects – what is important is the trend.

4. The term ‘systems thinking’ is controversial and used in different ways – we use it here in reference to its use in the capacity development literature (e.g., Morgan, 1997, p. iv).

5. Critical systems thinking is an attempt to address many of the limitations outlined regarding bias, cultural sensitivities, trust, and power imbalances (see Ho & Sculli, 1994, p. 54).

6. Balanced Scorecard approach tends to be recommended in the case of large‐scale multi‐donor/multi‐actor peace building exercises.