Consultant – Learning Report, Finance for Peace initiative

Interpeace

Interpeace is an international organization for peacebuilding. With over 25 years of experience, it has implemented a broad range of peacebuilding programmes in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Interpeace was officially recognized as an international entity by the Swiss Federal Council in 2018.

Interpeace tailors its approach to each society and ensures that its work is locally designed and driven. Through local partners and its own local teams, it jointly develops peacebuilding programmes based on extensive consultation and research. Interpeace helps establish processes of change that promote sustainable peace, social cohesion, and resilience. The organization’s work is designed to connect and promote understanding between local communities, civil society, governments, and the international community. Interpeace also assists the international community – especially the United Nations – to play a more effective role in peacebuilding, based on Interpeace’s expertise in field-based work at grassroots level. Interpeace achieves this primarily by contributing innovative thought leadership and fresh insights to contemporary peacebuilding policy. It also assists the international community through ‘peace responsiveness’ work, in which Interpeace provides advice and practical support to other international organizations (especially those in the security, development, and humanitarian aid sectors), enabling them to adapt their work systemically to simultaneously address conflict dynamics and strengthen peace dynamics. Interpeace is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has offices around the world.

Background

Finance for Peace (F4P) is a multistakeholder initiative that seeks to systemically change how private and public investment supports peace in developing and fragile contexts. It aims to create networked approaches that can co-develop the market frameworks, standards, political support networks, partnerships and knowledge required to scale up “peace finance” – investments that intentionally seek to improve conditions for peace.

F4P brings together investors, industry, norm setting entities, Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), governments, peacebuilding and development actors, civil society and local communities to further peace-positive investments. By building/enabling the creation of a market for peace enhancing finance, it aims to reduce risks for both investors and communities and achieve outcomes that are bankable and advance peace. By identifying critical frameworks and developing standards and principles, as well as key knowledge and innovative solutions, the initiative will help to create true additionality to investors, as well as more inclusive development.

Working with partners, Finance for Peace will develop an iterative peace impact framework and connected set of peace standards for various categories of investment that can be used by the market to guide, measure and validate peace positive investment.

Finance for Peace is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO) and builds on feasibility research supported by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) on a new sustainable investment category called peace bonds. Finance for Peace has been incubated by Interpeace.

Finance for Peace Workstreams

The Finance for Peace initiative currently operates three complementary workstreams:

• Development of Standards and Guidance to help lay foundations for the regulatory environment and guidelines which Peace Finance would operate within, particularly to protect the asset class from ulterior uses such as “peacewashing”.
• Development of Market Intelligence to further prove the concept’s applicability and transformative value for a variety of stakeholders working within the context of fragile and conflict-affected contexts.
• Engagement in Policy and Partnerships to influence decision makers and industry leaders towards supporting our efforts to establish the Peace Finance asset class and towards the adoption of peace finance standards in existing portfolios.

Service or Assignment Description and Objective(s)

The Learning Report has the following key objectives:

1. Develop a desk review of the evaluation literature on best practice on evaluative approaches to policy and multistakeholder initiatives seeking change in international development.
2. Update a process map on the initiative’s process to-date.
3. Harvest and substantiate outcomes identified by the Finance for Peace Team and harvest additional outcomes from individuals and institutions engaged in the initiative, understanding key opportunities and challenges for different partners.
4. Identify the chain of factors, actions and outcomes which have contributed to the results to date.
5. Identify, with the Finance for Peace Team, reflections and key learnings throughout the process, with an emphasis on learning about managing multistakeholder processes, partnership building as well any case studies on policy success in major change within Development Finance approaches
6. Draft an internal report based on the outcomes, process, reflections, and key learnings, providing strategic recommendations that can input into the 2024 strategy and beyond, co-developed with the Finance for Peace Team, for next steps to maximize the success and impact of the initiative. The report should be a learning study on Interpeace’s experience with the Finance for Peace initiative in catalysing multistakeholder processes and developing partnerships toward creating an enabling environment for commitment to and investment in peace in developing and fragile contexts.

The intent of the report will be to provide reflective, rather than purely normative or technical analysis and insights on Interpeace’s practices.

Scope and outputs of the Assignment

• Engage with Interpeace staff on interests, intent and to define scope for the learning.
• Develop a desk review of the evaluation literature on best practice on evaluative approaches to policy and multistakeholder initiatives seeking change in international development.
• Conduct learning research on any other multistakeholder processes and processes for catalysing global private sector social investment.
• Conduct desk review and individual discussions with staff to update the initiative’s process and key achievements map.
• Facilitate an outcome harvesting and after-action review workshop with the Finance for Peace Team
• Conduct interviews with key stakeholders to substantiate outcomes and gather stakeholder perspectives on the process, results to date, lessons learned, facilitating and inhibiting factors and recommendations for the future of the initiative. Ask key partners if they observed any policy changes or initiatives as a result of the project and provide concrete examples and evidence of these changes. It will be important to carefully document the information provided by key informants, including details about policy changes, their context, and any supporting evidence, then analyze the data to identify patterns, trends, contributions and the significance of these changes.
• Use the above to produce an internal learning report and provide recommendations for the 2024 Logframe.

Activities, Deliverables and Timeframe

Deliverables and Activities

The assignment is estimated to necessitate 12-15 working days.

Place(s) of performance: Remote, desk based.

Qualifications

• Familiarity with DMEL approaches as they relate to international organizations, international civil society initiatives, or international NGOs on learning processes, with a focus on policy-based projects, ideally aimed at policy changes in international development.
• Experience in development finance, peacebuilding, and/or impact financing and the wider context of development in fragile and conflict affected contexts.
• Good team player with a capacity for collaborative, effective and timely communication.
• Demonstrated ability to take initiative, work independently and confidently with limited supervision, and have a capacity for effectively steering work based on established priorities.
• Ability to work effectively and thrive within a diverse intercultural and interdisciplinary context.