Monitoring, evaluation & learning

I have significant experience in designing, monitoring, reviewing, evaluating and supporting learning from complex peace and security programmes. This ranges from reviewing and evaluating small projects to larger complex programmes, country portfolios and national/transnational strategies. From 2008 to 2010 I led a two year Conflict-Sensitivity Assessment of EU programmes in Sri Lanka, influencing the future EU programme and leading to the publication of conflict sensitivity guidelines for EU relief, development and peacebuilding partners. As Team Leader - Asia, at Saferworld from 2007 to 2010, I designed, managed, monitored and adjusted Saferworld’s peace, community security and police reform programming in Sri Lanka and Nepal. As Manager/Coordinator of Saferworld and partners’ Helpdesk on Human Security and Humanitarian Action for Sida between June 2013- 2016, I conducted and/or managed the delivery of numerous conflict analyses, conflict sensitivity assessments, tailored research, stakeholder mapping, project assessments and strategic evaluations – for example helping to review country portfolios, and to reflect on pan-African PVE efforts and develop guidelines and workshops for officials in response. At Saferworld, I also gained several years’ hands-on experience in ‘outcome harvesting’ methods as the organisation pioneered approaches now widely adopted across the sector. I have also led mid-term reviews or evaluations for Dutch government partners including the Dutch Knowledge Platform on Security and Rule of Law and the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF).

Expertise and experience:

• Member of the UK Government’s Civilian Stabilisation Group roster as a Conflict Prevention expert

• Rynn S, Jones M, Attree L, ‘Furthering Global Britain? Reviewing the Foreign Policy Effect of UK Engagement in East Africa - Occasional Paper,’ RUSI (August 2023)

• Jones M, Attree L, ‘Bargaining with the Green City in the Sun: An Appraisal of UK Engagement in Kenya,’ RUSI (August 2023)

• Report for Transition International: ‘Final Report Mid-Term Review: Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law,’ (May 2023)

• Led and co-authored two strands of research for the FCDO-funded project ‘Stabilisation and resilience strategies: what works to address threats posed by violent criminal or proscribed groups?’ (2021-22)

• Report with Abigail Watson: ‘How guns fall silent: Analysing examples of relative success in integrated stabilisation,’ (Saferworld/FCDO funded, May 2022)

• Report with Jordan Street: ‘No shortcuts to security: learning from responses to armed conflicts involving proscribed groups,’ (Saferworld/FCDO funded, May 2022)

• Provided strategic and operational advice to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency in response to requests to the Saferworld, Bradford University and Stockholm Policy Group helpdesks on peace, human rights, rule of law and conflict sensitivity, including authoring a number of written reports from 2010 onwards

• Podcast series - researched, scripted, cohosted and produced: Reckoning with 9/11, 8-part special series of Saferworld’s Warpod, September-November 2021, with Pulitzer-prize winning journalists and experts from affected countries

• Report with Jordan Street: ‘Conflict sensitivity assessment of UNDP’s "Preventing and Responding to Violent Extremism in Africa: A Development Approach”,’ (Saferworld helpdesk task for Sida, November 2020)

• Attree L, Street J & Venchiarutti L, ‘UN peace operations in complex environments: charting the right course,’ (Saferworld, 2018)

• Project managed and edited) report by David Keen: ‘Syria: Playing into their hands: regime and international roles in fuelling violence and fundamentalism in the Syrian war,’ (Saferworld, 2017)

• Project managed and edited report: ‘We need to talk about Egypt: how brutal counter-terrorism is failing Egypt and its allies,’ (Saferworld, 2017)

• Project managed and edited report by Lola Aliaga & Kloe O’Farrell: ‘Counter-terror in Tunisia: a road paved with good intentions?’ (Saferworld, 2017)

• Report with Thomas Nyagah: ‘Inside Kenya’s war on terror: the case of Lamu,’ (Saferworld, 2017)

• Report with Chris Wakube: ‘Inside Kenya’s war on terror: breaking the cycle of violence in Garissa,’ (Saferworld, 2017)

• Policy brief with Sunil Suri: ‘A new war on terror or a new search for peace: lessons from Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen,’ (Saferworld, 2016)

• Project managed and edited report by Sunil Suri: ‘Barbed wire on our heads: lessons from counter-terror, stabilisation and statebuilding in Somalia,’ (Saferworld, 2016)

• Project managed and edited report by Hesta Groenewald: ‘Hammering the bread and the nail: lessons from counter-terror, stabilisation and statebuilding in Afghanistan,’ (Saferworld, 2016)

• Report: ‘Blown back: lessons from counter-terror, stabilisation and statebuilding in Yemen,’ (Saferworld, 2016)

• Report with Tim Midgley, Ivan Briscoe et al: ‘Identifying approaches and measuring impacts of programmes focused on Transnational Organised Crime,’ (Saferworld/Small Arms Survey for DFID, 2014)

• Report with Tim Midgley, Thomas Wheeler et al.: ‘Defining and measuring the external stress factors that lead to conflict in the context of the post-2015 agenda,’ (Saferworld/CDA for DFID, 2014)

• Article: ‘From the High Level Panel report to an accountability framework,’ (Saferworld briefing, June 2013)

• Policy brief with Hannah Wright: ‘Addressing conflict and violence from 2015: A Vision of Goals, Targets and Indicators,’ (Saferworld, February 2013)

• Policy brief with Erin McCandless, Diana Chigas, James Cox et al: ‘Joint submission to consultation on shared indicators,’ (CSO Platform for Peacebuilding & Statebuilding, January 2013)

• Developed the feasibility study for a UK-funded conflict and governance mapping system for donors and aid agencies working in Somalia

• Report with Ivan Campbell & Hashitha Abeywardana: ‘Conflict-Sensitivity Assessment of EU programmes in Sri Lanka: Best practices and recommendations for project partners,’ (Saferworld/EU, October 2010)

• Report with S Keethaponcalan, ‘“The Practice of Conflict-Sensitivity – concept to impact” Donor Policy and conflict sensitivity in Sri Lanka - A literature review,” (Saferworld/CSA Consortium)

• Report with Hashitha Abeywardena, ‘Case studies of conflict sensitivity in consortium members’ projects,’ (Saferworld/CARE/PCA/CSA Consortium)

• Report with Hashitha Abeywardana & Thomas Ansorg, ‘Conflict-Sensitivity Assessment of EC programmes in Sri Lanka,’ (Saferworld, June 2009)

• Report: ‘Strategic overview of armed violence data collection and analysis mechanisms (South East Europe),’ (Belgrade, SEESAC, 2006)

• Report: ‘SASP Test in North East Serbia – Evaluation Report,’ (Belgrade, SEESAC, 2005)