Germany

October 11^th : Meeting with German Foreign Office 202 Unit as well as participants from ZIF and the Ministry of the Interior to discuss German practices for seconding civilian staff into CSDP missions as part of the Irish CSDP Mapping Mandate.

October 12^th : Meeting with German Foreign Office S03 Unit to discuss priorities and activities for the pooled funding under Pillar 1.

Part of ISSAT’s training support is in the provision of tailored short courses or modules for personnel ahead of their field deployments. In terms of the Hammelburg PKTC requirement, the ISSAT ‘pilot’ design was focussed on delivering a 3-day familiarisation and knowledge-based SSR module that helped participants to;

1. Understand the principles, approach and characteristics of SSR;
2. Explore the cross-cutting challenges and complexities of providing practical SSR support in fragile or complex environments. Looking at the need to balance accountability with effectiveness of development or reform work 
3. Enhance understanding of relevant SSR tools to support effective project implementation;

• Introduction to SSR Tool kit (with selected components for DE programming)
• Subjects selected and introduced to include;

             i.      Results Based Management (RBM)

             ii.      Stakeholder analysis and relationship management

             iii.      Integrity and sustainability framework

             iv.      Effects estimate and organisational (programme) mapping 

4. Case Study exercise – practical demonstration of linkages between effective SSR programming, governance and oversight.

DCAF-ISSAT was mandated by ZiF to support the Rule of Law Toolbox for Crisis Management and Peace Operations: Concepts, Practices and Trends training in Berlin by facilitating 3 sessions on 2 December. By the end of the training, participants were expected to be able to: 
1. Diagnose the Rule of Law Problem (how to conduct assessments);
2. Design responses to the Rule of Law problem (how to design strategies); and,
3. Establish general introduction to SSR.

The course is designed for mid-career or mid-management level professionals with national or international field or mission experience in the area of rule of law assistance in conflict-affected contexts. Participants will come from a range of geographical regions and international organizations including the EU, OSCE, UN, AU und LAS, and have specific expertise in rule of law or other related fields. 

ISSAT and UNDP have established a partnership, since 2016 and until 2020, to jointly work towards establishing a coherent evidence base for Rule of Law programming. Through the roll-out of a wide, country-level evaluation process, the aim is to establish  a lesson learning system to ensure that innovative practices, niches of good practice, examples of potential impact and shared challenges are systematically collected, analysed and fed into the programming process. The evaluations follow a uniformed methodology, albeit adapted to country contexts, and critically assess the project’s implementation and monitoring efforts and/or the country office’s broader rule of law efforts. 

UNDP has requested that DCAF-ISSAT evaluate the 2015-2017 phase of the Jordan country programme “Community Security and Access to Justice” as part of this series of evaluations. This evaluation will build upon the evidence base developed in the first evaluation of this series, of the Guinea-Bissau programme. It will start the process of understanding the range of UNDP activities occurring under the Global Programme, and thus contribute to the development of the strategic guidance on result reporting and monitoring at the global level (the mandate will also include the extraction of findings from the Jordan evaluation to feed into the strategic monitoring framework).