Suchergebnisse

During the past two decades, the United Nations Women, Peace and Security Agenda has expanded considerably to cover a wide range of themes and actors. Despite its global diffusion, it has been criticised for its slow implementation and is claimed by some to be mere rhetoric. In line with results-based management, indicators have become key tools in securing monitoring and evaluation of the agenda. This article provides new insights about the concrete use of indicators and responds to the following research questions: How does the use of indicators correspond to the goal of providing monitoring and evaluation data? How can we explain the occurrence of means-ends decoupling? The article examines the country-level use of indicators in Nigeria. The data is collected as part of an indicator ethnography conducted in Nigeria during the spring of 2020. Indicator culture has spread widely, creating an illusion of rationality and effectiveness. Resources, time and money are allocated to operationalization, without questioning the indicator logic itself. The Nigerian case reflects symbolic implementation, where actors maintain well-developed indicator frameworks and monitoring committees without evidence about its actual utility. Over the past four years, not a single monitoring report has been produced. The absence of reporting can be explained through capacity and resource challenges, but also as local actors counteract externally set norms and forms of numerical rationality. Theoretically, the article is based on sociological new-institutionalism and builds on previous feminist peace research. ; Peer reviewed