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The evaluation of culture of peace projects is also a participative process. Whereas traditional methods of development evaluation normally have emphasized the product of a project, the culture of peace ensures that evaluation also considers the process by which it was planned and implemented.
The Culture of Peace Programme is working with donor countries to develop new methods of project evaluation. These methods combine the analysis of the product achieved with a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the participation of the various parties in its planning and implementation. This analysis places a priority on the learning of people from all sides of a conflict to work together in achieving goals which they could not achieve if working alone or in competition with each other.
In the practical conditions of national programmes the culture of peace is closely related to the development of a culture of democracy. While the debates of electoral campaigns often divide political parties along diverging views, discussions on the culture of peace may serve as a point of convergence and general agreement. Thus in forums of electoral campaigns associated with several of the national programmes, the political parties have taken up this theme as a conflict free space' of the political campaign on which all of them could agree.
To ensure the management of the national culture of peace programmes, UNESCO has established offices in the capital cities of the three countries where they have been established: San Salvador, Maputo and Bujumbura. The San Salvador office is headed by a UNESCO Representative who is responsible for the programme. The Maputo office has both a UNESCO representative and a national professional officer responsible for the programme. The Bujumbura office is staffed by an international expert and four national professional officers.
Management of a culture of peace programme is complex. Not only is it necessary to implement a concept and a programme without historical precedent, but to convince parties that have been at war with each other to take part as equals in this pioneer process. It also demands the coordination of the programme with those of other United Nations institutions and those of other intergovernmental and non governmental organizations. In addition, those responsible for management of the national programme are the leading edge of the necessary fund raising activities to finance the projects that are proposed. Finally, since the culture of peace is a new and evolving concept, national programme management also have a special responsibility to contribute to its further conceptual development.
El Salvador and Mozambique were chosen because they were they were each engaged in a United Nations sponsored peace process, which included a formal peace accord and an extensive peace keeping mission. Burundi was chosen because of the danger that it might suffer from the extreme violence similar to that which had recently devastated its neighbour Rwanda. Thus, from the beginning, UNESCO national culture of peace programmes have been closely linked to the full process of United Nations actions for peace, including preventive diplomacy, peace keeping and peace building, as described in An Agenda for Peace (see section on United Nations).
El Salvador
The pioneer national programme was launched in El Salvador in 1993. The people of El Salvador, at that time, were carrying out a process of national reconciliation based on the agreements in the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords. The Accords, brokered by the United Nations,
The evaluation of culture of peace activities requires attention to the process of sharing and co operation as well as to the product of their collaboration.