The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) is a cross government fund which works to build peace and stability in countries and regions suffering from long-running conflicts. Launched in 2015, the £1.26 billion fund delivers 90 programmes in 70 countries and is central to the UK government’s work overseas. It has been a catalyst for a more integrated UK government response to fragility and conflict. It enables 12 government departments and agencies to address security policies in a collaborative way. The budget is split between official development assistance and other funding sources. This gives the fund a broader geographic and thematic reach than departments could achieve on their own.

CSSF has contracted Integrity Research and Consultancy to lead the Global Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (GMEL) Partnership and support the development of a stronger, more agile and more sustainable ‘ecosystem’ for monitoring, evaluation, learning and their application in decision-making.

The GMEL Partnership supports the set-up of a global MEL framework that will be designed with the specific overarching aim of bringing the CSSF to a level of evaluability, as well as enabling rigorous evidence-based policy and programme decisions. The UK government’s primary requirement is for a comprehensive MEL support service that can deliver flexibly across different fields and applies to policy areas, portfolios, and programmes. Hence, the objective of the Global MEL Partnership is to develop the systems and capabilities necessary for enabling the generation and synthesis of results and evidence across the Fund, as well as rigorously embedding evidence generation and dissemination, and lesson learning, into programme decision and design.

The project will have close access to UK government in order to shape thinking and comprehensively understand policy requirements. Currently, the CSSF is delivering programmes in a broad range of areas including (but not limited to): –

• Conflict prevention and peacebuilding
• Security and Justice, Serious Organised Crime and Security Sector Reform
• Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism
• Stabilisation
• Gender, Peace and Security

The project theory of change envisages that by the end of the three-year period, the CSSF more effectively and consistently: –

• Demonstrates credible contributions towards UK government priorities
• Uses reliable evidence in decisions or policy, strategy, funding allocations and programme planning throughout the CSSF network
• Communicates and exchanges insights transparently across the CSSF, with wider UK government and other audiences
• Learns from its own practice.

In order to achieve the above organisational behaviour changes, the project will focus on strengthening MEL capacity to ensure the CSSF has a stronger, more agile and more sustainable ecosystem for MEL and its application in decision-making.