Review of ExpERiEncEs with post-conflict nEEds AssEssmEnts 2008 – 2015

This report outlines the findings and recommendations of the first phase of the review. Following this introduction, the section ‘PCNAs and the evolving environment’ explains the role and added value of PCNAs and considers the implications of a changing the international and policy environment in which PCNAs are conducted. ‘ensuring effective PCNAs: lessons and experiences’ then summarizes the issues needing attention based on the experiences, lessons, and challenges observed with PCNAs and other joint assessments since 2008, highlighting areas for improvement. This reports ends with ‘recommendations,’ which call for further discussion. The appendixes to this report provide background information on the review and the cases examined and further develop the recommendations.


2008-2015 Donata Garrasi and Ross Allen
World Bank Group European Union United Nations

The Context of the Review
Since their introduction in 2003, Post-Conflict Needs Assessments (PCNA) have been used to conduct multilateral assessments in more than 10 countries. Other joint assessments have been conducted in a diverse range of crisis contexts, and some are ongoing. 1 The methodology, approach, and processes have been revised to strengthen the relevance and effectiveness of PCNAs, notably through the global review in 2006-07. The partnership framework for multilateral collaboration on crisis recovery and planning, including on PCNAs and Post-Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNAs), was formalized under the 2008 Joint Declaration on Post-Crisis Recovery Planning and Assessment (hereafter the Joint Declaration) signed by the United Nations (UN), World Bank (WB), and the European Union (EU). The PCNA Advisory Group was established in 2009 to support the implementation of PCNAs.
This review follows the "Review of the WB-UN Partnership in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations" conducted in 2013, which agreed that PCNAs remain an important vehicle for engagement in crisis and post-crisis contexts but suggested that a light review of the methodology was required to improve its relevance and flexibility.

The Scope and Objectives
This review examines lessons learned, opportunities taken, and challenges faced with PCNAs and other joint assessment exercises in crisis contexts conducted by the three institutions since 2008. It identifies specific areas for improvement and suggests ways to strengthen the relevance of the PCNA process, approach, and methodology (hereafter the process). 2 The aim is to help improve the flexibility and effectiveness of PCNA-to enable earlier, faster, more flexible, and effective assessments and responses. 3 As a "light touch" review, the recommendations are focused primarily on practical changes that can improve the current PCNA process. Given the complex nature of the process, the context, and the institutional partnership for PCNAs, the review has identified some substantive issues that would require further reflection by the Joint Declaration partners. These are also outlined in this report.
In line with the review's terms of reference and as a desk-based review, this exercise has not assessed whether the joint approach works better than alternative options. The decision to retain PCNAs as an important vehicle for engagement in crisis and post-crisis contexts assumes that the partners agree that the approach is relevant and have committed to it (as referenced in the third paragraph of the "Introduction"): this is the starting point for this review. However, given interest expressed by informants during the review in articulating the role and relevance of PCNAs, the review team has tried to highlight PCNAs' added value and show how this can be enhanced, based on the evidence provided and consultations held. Whether these or other processes are ultimately the right response for the three institutions individually or collectively depends greatly on internal political considerations, including what the partners are willing and able to invest in such approaches to make them effective.

Review Methodology
To identify key issues and recommend the changes required to strengthen PCNAs, the review explored the role and added value of PCNAs; the context in which PCNAs are likely to be undertaken in the future; the key results achieved and challenges encountered in conducting PCNAs since 2008; and PCNA processes and the methodology and the institutional framework around PCNAs. The review analyzed available documentation provided by staff at the World Bank, EU, and UN and available online. It conducted extensive consultations with key staff from each organization at headquarters (HQ) and in field as well as interlocutors from the League of Arab States (LAS), the g7+ secretariat 4 , the government of Sierra Leone, the government of Pakistan, and the government and donor community in Myanmar. The review did not include field visits.
This review considered the following PCNAs and other joint assessment processes: The review team held consultations with colleagues engaged in the ongoing joint assessment in Gaza and the recently completed Ebola Recovery Assessment (ERA, 2014-15), although it is acknowledged that both examples are not formally recognized as PCNAs and are not formally case studies for this review.
This review is being conducted in two phases. Phase one has focused on reviewing the case studies and conducting consultations, and these results are presented in this report. The review team will present an options paper outlining key strategic decisions required to enhance the PCNA process for the consideration of senior leaders in the World Bank, EU, and UN. 6 Review of Experiences With Post-Conflict Needs Assessments

PCNAs and the Evolving Environment
What Are PCNAs?
The Joint Declaration and PCNA guidance describe PCNAs as "assessments conducted jointly by multilateral agencies and national stakeholders to provide a prioritized and costed assessment of needs in a post-conflict situation" in view of informing a coherent recovery strategy.
Since PCNAs were first initiated, they have evolved from one-off exercises that produced an assessment and Transitional Results Matrix (TRM). Normally, PCNAs have been undertaken in relation to a donor conference through processes that delivered different outputs in a phased or iterative way and/or contributed to ongoing recovery and a peacebuilding process. This is well reflected in the variety of objectives, approaches, and methodologies that have been adopted in PCNAs and other joint assessment exercises since 2008 and that are illustrated throughout this report. Box 1 presents a brief overview of the "evolution" of PCNAs since they were initiated.

The Changing Environment
Since PCNAs were launched, the contextual, operational, and institutional environment around them has evolved. Some of these changes have implications for the rationale, scope, and impact of the assessments. In the future, PCNAs will be conducted and likely mobilized in complex, crowded, and at times insecure environments, where they will be one of a number of processes contributing to crisis recovery and the peacebuilding response. This context requires an even more adaptable and flexible approach to PCNAs and how they and other joint exercises are conducted. The following paragraphs outline some of the major changes that have an impact on the way PCNAs are positioned and conducted.
The evolving conflict and peacebuilding environment. The range of countries considered conflict affected or fragile is increasingly broad and diverse. At the same time, recovery and peacebuilding are now better understood as longterm processes requiring a mix of immediate, medium-, and long-term responses rather than linear events (for example, peace accords post-conflict). PCNAs and joint assessments are being mobilized in a growing number of highly volatile and/or middle-income countries (for example, Lebanon, Libya, and Ukraine) where resources may not be a primary concern, and a key aim is to support a nationally led recovery strategy before there is a formal end of hostilities. Assessments are being conducted and interventions planned in situations of protracted and repeated crisis where windows of opportunities are seemingly narrow (for example, Republic of Yemen) and in situations of complex and overlapping crisis, including at the regional level, where the ability to mobilize capacities and resources quickly on a large scale is critical and could not be done by single institutions. (The campaign to fight Ebola is an example). The increasing vulnerabilities of some countries and regions to both natural and manmade disaster simultaneously also have implications for PCNAs and suggest a greater need to adapt the approach and seek synergies with Post-Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNAs).
Growing insecurity. The trends just highlighted have also meant that multilateral organizations have found themselves operating-and have been requested to engage in PCNAs processes-in increasingly insecure or difficult environments where access is constrained. That was the case in Libya, Eastern Ukraine, and Republic of Yemen, for example, and in the Ebola-affected countries. This may be an issue if joint assessments are conducted in areas of the Middle East, such as Syria, and such countries as the Central African Republic, Mali, Northern Nigeria, and Somalia. Implications include a requirement to

BOx 1 The Evolution of PCNAs
PCNAs conducted before 2008 were comprehensive planning exercises, designed and conducted to provide a comprehensive sectoral assessment of needs in post-conflict, post-peace agreement contexts. The Transitional Results Matrix (TRM) translated the assessment into costed recovery priorities and actions and served as a basis for a national recovery plan to mobilize support at a donor conference (for example, those held in Liberia and Sudan).
These assessments were broad in scope, involved great efforts and capacities, and were often lengthy and resource intensive. The findings were not systematically followed by effective implementation. Their conflict sensitivity and contribution to national peacebuilding efforts was in most instances poorly articulated. These are some of the challenges that the 2006-07 Review of PCNAs identified and the 2007 Joint Guidance Note attempted to address.
The most recent guidance rooted PCNAs in understanding the core nature of conflict in order to establish key priorities in support of peacebuilding processes, while recognizing that PCNA outcomes can be linked to broader goals, such as achieving Millennium Development Goals. Situations where joint assessment and recovery planning were considered relevant include the following: • A sudden breakthrough in a peace or political transition process, requiring a clear plan and budget to support the process • A peace or political transition process at a stage where it is useful for parties to focus on practical transition planning • A later transition requiring a new process to confirm national priorities • A political, security, economic, or social crisis requiring reevaluation of priorities and recovery plans Since 2008, the partnership and joint assessments have been mobilized in the context of complex crisis and peacebuilding processes, and the reports have varied in length and scope (see appendix C). Greater flexibility and adaptability to the context, enabled by the revised methodology and underpinned by a considerable body of practice, experience, and lessons learned, enabled faster and more versatile assessments.
combine approaches and methodologies that enable remote data collection and analysis, place greater reliance on local staff, deploy small multidisciplinary teams of essential staff, outsource field work, revise security protocols, and apply adapted citizen feedback mechanisms. The many processes within the evolving peacebuilding architecture. The peacebuilding environment, in particular the UN peacebuilding architecture (under review at the time of this writing), has evolved significantly since PCNAs were initiated. On the UN side, the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and the Integrated Mission Planning Process and Needs Assessment Missions were expected to facilitate a coherent international response in crisis-affected situations. 5 The recent review of UN Peace Operations concluded that the UN system must pull together in a more integrated manner in the service of conflict prevention and peace. Increasing attention to conflict prevention and peace implies greater importance attached to joint planning processes, expectations for ensuring links between assessment processes (humanitarian, peacebuilding, and development), and more emphasis on coordination between UN partners at the highest levels in the UN system and with member states. 6 Other approaches to assessing needs and planning are used by multilateral and bilateral agencies. These include the New Deal; Economic and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs); UN Consolidated Appeal Process (Humanitarian Resource Mobilization); and a range of conflict sensitivity and analytical tools (for example, Conflict Related Development Analysis). More than 40 PDNAs have also been undertaken in the past five years, including some in conflict-affected contexts. 7 In this complex environment, the relevance of PCNAs needs to be repositioned within the broader peacebuilding architecture as a key existing framework for joint multilateral assessments that can deliver a shared narrative for peacebuilding. Greater attention will be required to understand and use the specific added value of PCNAs and flexibility will be needed in determining what type of processes are most useful and politically viable, particularly for the partner organizations. (For example, should the focus be broadly strategic and/or political or narrow and focused on costing and financing of physically destroyed infrastructure).
Peacebuilding and statebuilding goals. Increasingly, national and international actors have acknowledged the need to focus on peacebuilding and statebuilding priorities as complementary to the Millennium Development Goals in conflict-affected situations. This means a shift from traditional development sectors and outcomes to priorities related to inclusive political settlements, security and justice, and economic revitalization as foundations for peacebuilding. The expectation is for these priorities to inform assessments and responses in conflict affected situations. To remain relevant, it will be important for PCNAs to consider peacebuilding and statebuilding goals as part of the analytical framework for joint assessment processes, and to be flexible enough to adapt the needed methodology and process, including the skills and capacities, required for the exercise. The new Sustainable Development Goals and the inclusion of a peace-related dimension may create new opportunities for joint approaches to crisis assessment and planning.
Political and operating environment. The principles of country ownership and leadership of processes of transition from conflict and fragility continue to be upheld, including through the voice of such groups as the g7+. Country ownership, leadership, and engagement have increasingly preoccupied joint assessment exercises. Recent PCNAs have endeavored to include all relevant actors, including nonstate groups, and to build broader partnerships. (Examples include consultations with subnational actors in Lebanon and Pakistan and efforts to determine local ownership by ethnic armed groups for a PCNA in Myanmar.) However, engaging with national authorities or nonstate actors that may not be perceived as legitimate may present particular challenges. Further attention and development of best practices on how to engage with national actors may be increasingly necessary in the future.
The institutional context. Since the Joint Declaration was signed, the World Bank, EU, and UN have undergone significant transformations that have strengthened their roles independently in conflict and post-conflict situations: • The World Bank has consolidated all work in fragile and conflict-affected states into a new Conflict and Violence Cross-Cutting Solutions Area, thus elevating the agenda at the corporate level and across sectors and regions. • The creation of the European External Action Service in the EU, with its comprehensive approaches to conflict and crisis and its extensive network of delegations around the world, have enhanced the EU's ability to play a central role in delivering and coordinating dialogue, action, and support as well as in the implementation of external assistance. • The UN has move moved toward more integrated political, security, and development operations in crisis countries of the UN and a stronger focus on peacebuilding through the strengthening of the Peacebuilding Architecture. At the same time, the capacity of main UN coordinating body for planning and coordination-the Development Operations Coordination Office (DOCO)-has been reduced.
These changes and evolving institutional incentives and interests have had an impact on organizations' capacity and willingness to engage in joint assessment processes. They have raised questions about the partnership that require substantive discussions, including on the value of PCNAs. They also point to greater challenges in designing processes that are effective in complex environments and can contribute to broader recovery and peacebuilding processes.
The country experiences examined for this review highlight a number of good practices and a degree of innovation in adapting to the operating context, which can be built on and further developed to ensure PCNAs and joint exercises are more relevant to the Joint Declaration partners. They also show an evolving understanding of the need to reposition PCNAs as a contribution to broader processes of crisis response and peacebuilding.

Ensuring Effective PCNAs: Lessons and Experiences
The consultations undertaken for this review suggest that PCNAs continue to be considered by the partners as a critical framework for pooling expertise and resources and for coordinating a unified response to a crisis. The partners have improved and adapted the way these exercises are conducted, specifically, to take account of past lessons and respond to specific crisis contexts. At the same time, the high transaction costs and ambiguity surrounding outputs and results have in some cases put into question the utility of PCNAs. The lack of a shared, clear vision for the exact role of PCNAs in today's recovery and peacebuilding environment is a major challenge to cementing a partnership that consistently delivers, and it needs to be addressed.
Overall the review findings confirm that the trilateral commitment underpinning PCNAs need to be reviewed to reenergize the process and clarify the role of PCNAs. The process and methodology need to be further simplified and systematized, and the value of PCNAs must be articulated more clearly within the new institutional realities for the three partners in order for PCNA to regain its role as a strategically useful tool for dealing with complex environments. The following areas were identified as those in which most of the challenges exist and where key improvements should occur: • Strategic role of PCNAs and effective partnership: Further define the strategic positioning of PCNA and renew the institutional commitment and support to PCNAs and to the partnership approach, broadening it as useful. • Effective design and management: Simplify and systematize the process and methodology, while ensuring it is flexible and adaptable. • Implementation and results: Ensure that outcomes are clear and delivered. • National ownership and leadership: Consider options to enable ownership by national authorities and other national stakeholders.
The recommendations at the end of this report propose concrete ways to address key issues in each of these areas.

Finding 1: Strengthening the Role of PCNAs and the Partnership
The case studies and the interviews suggest that institutional commitment to conducting joint assessments in crisis and post-crisis contexts has not been consistent across PCNAs and other joint processes since 2008. This appears as a major factor hampering the value-added of the process. The governance and decision-making processes around PCNAs (which were often referred to as burdensome during this review) need to be systematized to professionalize the process and ensure strategic coherence. An effective support capacity is required to better embed the PCNA process within the respective institutions and to enable effective coordination and collaboration. And broader partnerships, in particular with regional organizations, could help make PCNAs and the tri-partite partnership more effective.

The Added Value and Strategic Role of PCNAs
The review found broad agreement within and between the World Bank, EU, and UN that the main role and added value of a PCNA is its capacity to lever the comparative strengths of each of the institutions to provide a unified assessment and platform for response in a crisis context. Based on the findings from the interviews and the case studies, four key advantages of joint assessments were identified and can be summarized as follows: i. Joint approach: PCNAs are the only agreed institutional framework for the World Bank, EU, and UN for joint assessment and response to crisis situations. Comparative advantages (for example, expertise, political clout, staff and financial capacity, country presence, and so forth) add value and produce richer analytical processes than possible in individual institutions. ii. Strategic potential: Working collectively provides significant potential for having a major positive impact on a crisis situation, including in regional environments. Collective effort spreads risk and is an enabler for engaging on sensitive peacebuilding and statebuilding issues, particularly in highly political environments. iii. Normative obligation: Joint assessment and responses are less taxing on national governments (each PCNA has been conducted at the request of a national authority), in particular as they reduce transaction costs on national authorities. A joint approach is in line with the aid and development effectiveness agenda, to which the three institutions subscribe, and best practice for engaging in conflict-affected environments. iv. Quality: PCNA enables qualitative and quantitative approaches required for conflict environments. They can provide quick, high quality product to meet urgent requests Figure B.1 in appendix B shows how staff interviewed for this review understand the benefits for and contribution by each institution to joint assessments and their perceived added value.
The Ukraine Recovery and Peacebuilding Assessment (RPA) is a strong, recent example of the added value of the joint approach to engaging in volatile contexts (with a mandate to deliver quick result). The RPA seems to have benefitted greatly from each institution's inputs at different times during the assessment, as well as of a strong coordinating team and the availability of senior expertise. The EU played a key role in navigating a complex political environment at the outset of the assessment, leading to a relatively targeted set of assessment priorities. The UN quickly mobilized a strong team with peacebuilding, gender, and displacement experts to ensure social resilience issues were addressed in a comprehensive, human-rights-based approach across the assessment. The World Bank mobilized expertise to finalize the economic analysis, after having led the infrastructure and social services component. On a practical level, the Republic of Yemen Joint Social and Economic Assessment (JSEA) relied heavily on UN and EU infrastructure to facilitate a World Bank-led in-country assessment, which included ensuring that key meetings could proceed. The EU security capacity and protocol also meant that its staff could conduct market assessments to validate data, which the review understands the UN and World Bank staff were unable to undertake at the time of the assessment. Other examples, such as Lebanon Joint Economic Impact and Social Assessment (JESIA) and the preparatory process for the Myanmar Joint Peacebuilding Needs Assessment (JPNA) show that the value of a joint approach can be upheld even when the three institutions may not be able to engage at the same level as the other partners for a range of political, capacity, and logistics reasons.
However, despite the positive experiences, at the strategic level consensus about the role of PCNAs going forward, including where and when they should be mobilized, is missing, which makes it difficult to maximize the collective approach. The PCNAs and joint assessment examined for this review do not reveal any specific pattern that helps clarify where and when to mobilize PCNAs or provide evidence to easily identify the triggers for doing so. In addition, evidence suggests that PCNAs and joint assessments have not been used consistently in crisis and post-crisis environments, as shown in figure 1,  which overlays countries where joint assessments were conducted with countries considered fragile according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 8 those with UN political or peacekeeping missions, those under PBC configuration, members of the g7+ group, and those involved in the New Deal. Since 2008, joint assessments have been undertaken in only two fragile states with significant international attention in support of peacebuilding and recovery: Pakistan and Republic of Yemen. Only Liberia fits all the circles for the post-2008 period owing to the Ebola Recovery Assessment (ERA) in 2015. Box 2 summaries common questions that were raised during the review, illustrating the different views in this regard.
This overview, the case studies, and interviews indicate the potential for a much greater mobilization of PCNAs in a number of high needs environments where PCNAs could complement other existing process, particularly UN Mission countries and countries facing subnational conflict (for example, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Mali, Nigeria, and South Sudan). Whereas joint work is being considered for some of these countries (Mali, Central African Republic, and Nigeria), a more systematic approach to collective horizon scanning of crisis situations at headquarters could help identify

BOx 2 Illustrative Questions Raised during the Review on the Role of PCNAs and Related Institutional Incentives
The role of PCNAs • What is the role of PCNAs in the context of broader peacebuilding and statebuilding processes? • Isn't a PCNA the job for the UN peace and security architecture, which uses other approaches (e.g., integrated assessment for mission planning)? • Aren't PCNAs designed for post-conflict situations, as the name suggests? Can they effectively work during a conflict, in stabilization and peacebuilding and statebuilding contexts? • Should PCNAs be undertaken where they seem to be most needed (e.g., Central African Republic)? • Should PCNAs not have been replaced by the fragility assessments proposed in the New Deal?

Institutional Incentives
• What do PCNA's contribute to each partner organization, to the partnership, and to the client that cannot be provided otherwise? Isn't it easier to do assessments alone?

Results
• What results have been delivered?
• If PCNAs are so important and useful, why have they not been institutionalized within each partner organization to strengthen the partnership (e.g., systematically conducted as part of every engagement in crisis-affected situations)?

Value for Money
• Is the effort worth the investment?
such opportunities as well as consider circumstances where a PCNA is not a suitable approach. The evolving practice with PDNAs was mentioned repeatedly as a good example of how to address some of the challenges just outlined and may offer some useful lessons for PCNA processes moving forward. The growing success of PDNA processes can be attributed to extensive efforts to develop a clear and predictable approach to them, which is outlined in two volumes of recently published guidance material. Based on interviews with World Bank and UN staff involved with PDNA and PCNA, it appears that the PDNA process has improved significantly due to a shared understanding among the Joint Declaration partners of the vision and guiding principles for PDNAs: a focus on government ownership, a clear understanding of objectives, effective analytical tools required to assess needs, and sustained collaboration among PDNA focal points in the World Bank, EU and UN. Most interlocutors noted that the PDNA is not perfect and faces common challenges, such as ensuring government ownership and linking assessment outcomes with finance, but many acknowledged a positive forward trajectory and strong commitment to this joint process. 9 The relationship between PCNAs and PDNAs is explored at under section 2.9 "Synergies and Collaboration" in this report.

Institutional Commitment and Governance
The review team noted that most interlocutors pointed to different institutional interests, incentives, disincentives, and interinstitutional dynamics as key enablers and/or disablers for effective and strategic PCNAs. 10 Senior officials from the three institutions mentioned that the high level political commitment expressed in the Joint Declaration has not materialized into consistent senior and political leadership and engagement by the three partner organizations or into concrete changes by the three institutions in their approach to working together in crisis-affected environments. Despite the Joint Declaration and multiple past PCNAs and other joint assessments, the World Bank, EU, and UN have all struggled to internally anchor the responsibility for driving PCNAs and the tripartite partnership forward. This has had negative consequences for PCNAs as explored through this report, including the inconsistent capacity provided to assessments and the weak link between assessment findings and subsequent allocation or reallocation of programs and funding.
Institutional interests were frequently presented as a core challenge for cooperation. For example, the World Bank is often perceived to engage in PCNA as a way to expand presence and own loan operations. Such comments were made in regard to the processes in Republic of Yemen and Libya. The UN's engagement is perceived to depend often on the context and driven by high profile, programming, and funding opportunities, as well as the need to respond to the pressure of the various departments, program, and funds. The UN mobilized for Ukraine and Ebola recovery but was slow to respond on Republic of Yemen, where limited new funding opportunities were anticipated, often exerting pressuring to ensure the inclusion of several agencies, sectors, and experts. The EU is perceived as taking a careful approach in many instances, although overall providing generous financial support and valuable political clout. The EU had a clear interest in Republic of Yemen, for instance, for substantiating its existing program through the joint assessment, but it was less involved in other contexts where it had major established portfolios and political engagement.
Some interlocutors raised concerns about the conflict of interest in institutions undertaking assessments with programming in mind. This applies particularly to UN agencies, funds, and programs, and to a lesser extent the World Bank, that usually require funding for implementing core programs in new crisis situations. This was mentioned as a key driver behind pushing PCNA and the tendency to take a broad-brush (many sectors) approach to assessments. The distortionary effects of this conflict of interest are discussed in the first paragraphs of "Finding 4: Promoting Nationally Owned and Inclusive Processes. " The extent to which the institutions want and expect governments to be in the driver seats of joint assessments was not openly raised by interlocutors and did not appear as a main issue in the case studies. This may be because the three organizations are institutionally committed to working with and through their clients, and the issue of national ownership seems to be approached in terms of degrees and modalities rather than a stand-alone issue, as explained in the last finding of this report. (See "Finding 4: Promoting Nationally Owned and Inclusive Processes. ") Several interlocutors also mentioned a culture of mistrust in each party's institutional capacities, technical competences, political imperatives, and overall relevance in regard to commitment to this agenda. Such comments were made for each of the post-2008 joint assessments. Whereas at the technical and/or the individual level, and in some instances also at the senior level (for example, Ukraine, Lebanon, and Georgia), the relationship between the institutions may work, there does not seem to be a consistent commitment to or in some instances interest in the joint approach.
Internal institutional challenges are equally important: • EU: Post-2008 engagement by the EU, a complex political entity that has to contend with a wide agenda and engagements on behalf of its member states (including geopolitical and trade concerns), complicates its position and role in the partnership and PCNAs. 11 With a strong financial and political capacity to engage bilaterally, an extensive field presence through its delegations headed by senior political representatives, and strong engagement in other processes and partnerships (for example, on the New Deal and resilience agenda), interlocutors questioned why the EU should continue to spend its funds and political capital on laborious processes that do not always deliver clear results. Internal governance arrangements need to be clarified, and at the time of the writing discussions at this regard were ongoing, including on the role of the European External Action Service and of cross-EU governance arrangements. • World Bank: Internal World Bank dynamics and the questioning by some parts of the organization of the value of time-consuming partnerships and processes and of engaging with issues and partners with significantly different mandates and capacities affect the organization's capacity to present a unified front on PCNAs. A few interlocutors commented that while the commitment to and responsibility for the partnership is clearly with the Fragility, Conflict and Violence Cross-Cutting Solutions Area, they have not yet been institutionalized like other standard World Bank assessment processes. • UN: Internal challenges include the existence of a complex peace, political, and development architecture, which makes it at times difficult to understand which part of the UN can best facilitate the organization's involvement in joint assessments and responses. The coordination role formerly played by DOCO was eroded by the dramatic reduction of the office's capacities and mandate and has not been fully replaced, according to UN officials interviewed for this review. 12 Officials also commented that it would be useful to have greater clarity on the role of PCNAs and on way the whole UN system-including such key departments and offices as the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), and the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO)-can engage.
The following paragraphs outline some of the experiences in addressing these internal and interinstitutional challenges. In particular they suggest the need for senior-level commitment and leadership in HQ and in country, clearer internal and cross-institutional governance and decision-making mechanisms, and an effective support capacity. Good preparation and management mechanisms also appear as keys to overcoming institutional differences and enabling effective collaboration. (See "Finding 2: Streamlining Design and Management of Joint Assessments. ") Post-2008 experiences with PCNA and other joint assessments show that there is a strong correlation among ownership, consistent senior-level engagement, and effective processes. When strong commitment, senior-level leadership, and effective decision making have been a feature of PCNA or similar processes, assessments have been well received inside the respective institutions and the required mechanisms to transform assessments into action have been established. Pakistan, Georgia, Ukraine, and Lebanon present good examples of assessments that were supported by high-level institutional engagement. (See box 3 for a summary of lessons from these processes.) Building on these experiences, interlocutors, including senior representatives of the institutions, highlighted the need for an open internal and cross-institutional conversation about the individual institutional interests and what they are willing to contribute to take the partnership and PCNAs forward. This would appear as particularly relevant, as it was noted that the Joint Declaration lacks details to define mutual commitments and other strategic and operational aspects of the partnership, including specifics about decision-making mechanisms and capacities required for managing the partnership and PCNAs at the strategic and operational level-a situation that has left space for the ad hoc engagement by partner organizations, according to their own institutional interests. Equally necessary, given the institutional changes that have already been highlighted, is a conversation about the internal and cross-institutional governance mechanisms that would best enable effective engagement.
At the country level, experiences point to the need to consider a systematic mechanism for the partner organizations to meet at the senior level and focus on operationalizing the partnership, including possible engagement with joint assessments. In most contexts a variety of coordination mechanisms and channels exist for the World Bank, the UN, and the EU to cooperate. 13 Regular senior-level meetings on strategic cooperation prior to PCNA, however, have not been mentioned as a feature in the country experiences reviewed. Ultimately, the partnership should come alive at country level. Based on consultations conducted for this review, any future effort to enhance or institutionalize trilateral engagements under the partnership will require a strong push from headquarters to ensure leadership in the field.

Joint assessment
What worked

Pakistan, PCNA KP, FATA 2010
Extensive preparatory work and strong leadership were critical in framing and delivering a delicate PCNA exercise aimed at contributing to a government-led peacebuilding strategy for the country's frontier region. This process seems to have worked because consistent leadership and oversight from HQ and the country offices informed decision making in areas fundamental to the process and supported the efforts of country teams. It enabled building trust between the institutions and facilitated strategic communication among donors, government, and stakeholders in the crisis-affected areas.

Georgia, JNA, 2008
This is considered an example of a timely, quick, and well-managed assessment. This was possible in part because decision making was effective and clear processes were followed. Early conversations about "triggering" a PCNA, while sparked by technical staff in the anchor units of the EU, World Bank, and UN-DOCO, were quickly transmitted upward to the decision makers in both HQ and country offices of each institution. This enabled "reaching up and out," avoiding disconnects within each institution. Leadership was ensured by the proactive engagement of the EU-World Bank-UN and other international financial institutions and partners, which helped ensure senior management buy-in and full participation in the JNA.

ukraine, RPA, 2014-15
Interviews noted that effective governance bodies backed up a strong institutional commitment. In particular, a steering committee composed of the government of Ukraine, the World Bank, EU, and UN was highly effective at the outset of the review. EU senior leadership in-country played a key role in managing difficult political discussions with the government. Strong World Bank and UN engagement ensured high-quality institutional inputs at the start of the exercise and, particularly for the World Bank, capacity throughout the exercise. The UN leadership helped to streamline UN engagement, although it still featured a large team.

Lebanon, JESIA, 2011
The JESIA had strong support from national leadership (for example, the prime minister and a steering committee of advisors to the prime minister and director general of the ministry of finance) and international partners (for example, the World Bank country director was involved on a daily basis with the coordination team and sector directors and the regional vice president was engaged). This senior-level engagement and clear leadership arrangement (with the World Bank leading the process) appears to have been important factors to the success of the process.

Review of Experiences With Post-Conflict Needs Assessments
The review noted the lack of reference in any of the case studies to standard procedures for communication and decision making, although some exist. Examples of multiple and parallel communication lines within and among institutions, between HQs and the field, were, on the contrary, mentioned repeatedly. Consistent and predictable communication between HQs and field teams leading up to PCNAs and between teams during the assessment was recognized as a key ingredient for success (for instance, in the Georgia and Ukraine assessments). Standard communication protocols have been a feature of the positive transformation in the application of the PDNA methodology.
A clear and consistent process for deciding to initiate a PCNA appears to be missing or is inconsistently applied. The most consistent trigger to date is a request from a national authority or an opportunity identified by one of the three institutions, at times in competition. The current ad hoc approach does not seem conducive to good planning and often undermines efforts to strengthen the partnership. In Ukraine, for example, multiple request letters sent by different government agencies to individual institutions brought the World Bank, EU, and UN together at the country leader level to consider undertaking a joint assessment. For the Myanmar JPNA, the request to undertake a PCNA was received by the government of Norway and only reached the EU, UN, and World Bank later when the letter was circulated to the Peace Donor Support Group. For the Libya LCNA, not all partners were aware that the PCNA approach was being taken forward in Libya until just before the initial planning meetings. A well-documented agreement and process for triggering PCNA would be beneficial to both strategic decision makers looking to strengthen joint efforts to promote peace and security, and technical staff responsible for operationalizing PCNAs. A number of UN interviews highlighted that more transparency in the decision-making process would help to strengthen the partnership within the UN system.

Support and Capacity
There is currently no dedicated support mechanism available to the Joint Declaration partners to provide constant and effective support for PCNAs, including taking care of basic organizational processes. For example, for the Libya LCNA, effective coordination would have ensured that the EU had adequate planning time to approach initial PCNA planning meetings. For the Myanmar JPNA, the World Bank and UN deployed experts early in the process, whereas the EU was initially reluctant to participate, deploying an expert only in the latter stages of development of the assessment methodology. Overall, best practice support, lessons learned from previous exercises, and up-to-date templates for planning PCNAs are sourced individually by team leaders and thematic coordinators through networks, but these should be on hand to facilitate planning process.
PCNA focal points within each organization do not have an institutional support mechanism. DOCO used to play a key role both for the UN and in support to the partnership and PCNAs, but it no longer has the capacity. The PCNA Advisory Group was created in 2009 specifically to oversee a PCNA project to strengthen and further develop tools and capacities for implementation of PCNAs. Following the completion of the project, it was agreed to continue the Advisory Group to promote implementation and institutional commitment, share information and draw lessons learned, as well as address policy and operational gaps. The Advisory Group has not been used actively for country-specific PCNA exercises, and as it is not a strategic decision-making body it is unclear how it links to formal decision-making structures of each institution.
The absence of dedicated support capacity has also meant that corporate information on the Joint Declaration and PCNAs is not easily available to the partner organizations themselves and national partners. Existing corporate material is not up-to-date and there is no systematic follow-through on lessons learning. 14 While the range of materials and tools to guide PCNAs are extensive, most reviews' interlocutors seemed largely unaware of their existence or their application by practitioners.
Critically, this applies to country representations that are or could be involved with PCNAs. Interlocutors noted a lack of awareness of PCNAs at the level of country senior leadership of the partner organizations (for example, the UN resident/humanitarian coordinator or UNDP country representative, World Bank country director, EU head of delegation). In contrast, the PDNA management is systematic; for example, senior country level staff receive joint communications from the three partner organizations following a disaster to inform their offices that the tools and expertise are available should they be required. The PDNA process is also benefiting from a rollout of the methodology that was updated in 2014, including methods for promoting the tool with high-risk countries.
Most interlocutors also noted that joint assessments require high-caliber capacities with the right skills set and a sustained commitment to ensure that these are available throughout an assessment. Georgia, Pakistan, and Ukraine were mentioned as good examples in this regard. A consistent commitment to providing capacity, however, remains a major challenge. High-profile assessments have been oversubscribed, while staffing less visible exercises, such as that in Republic of Yemen, was described as like "pulling teeth. " Interlocutors involved in a range of joint assessments in the past few years highlighted that senior, experienced, and skilled staff are often mobilized for the first few days or weeks, but thereafter a mix of consultants and less experienced staff take over. This has been a contributing factor in slowing the Ukraine assessment. The World Bank has been consistent in mobilizing key resources from HQ, the region, and country of the assessment in most recent assessments (for example, in Ukraine, Lebanon, and Myanmar). The UN system engagement has been patchy and at times overwhelming in numbers (Ukraine and ERA). The limited staff capacity and field presence of the EU means that it although contributing significantly to the partnership and to joint assessments, may continue to rely on framework agreements to provide external consultants to support its assessment contribution.
The inconsistent approach to mobilizing institutional expertise causes tension in the partnership and directly relates to perceptions of PCNA processes being heavy and unwieldy. This situation was mentioned repeatedly during interviews as hampering effective and efficient PCNA processes. For example, while it was difficult to mobilize the UN for the Republic of Yemen assessment, seven UN gender advisers were mobilized for the Ukraine RPA. Previous attempts to increase the availability of qualified experts to include on the PCNA roster have not been successful and are now redundant. 15 Several interlocutors also expressed reservations about training and placing staff on rosters, in particular because this exposes the organization to losing good staff to assessments when they provide vital services in their regular positions.
The case studies and interviews conducted for this review pointed to few good practices to mobilize national expertise (for example, national experts, local staff of partner organizations, and national civil servants) and to the need to make more efforts in this direction, particularly in high-capacity contexts. The Ukraine and Pakistan assessment teams went to great lengths to ensure government engagement, and the World Bank mobilized local and regional staff for the assessment. Interlocutors agreed that more effort should be made to recruit local capacity to support assessments on short-term contracts in high-capacity areas and that the partners could develop a modality for doing this. The ERA process may provide some useful lessons about mobilizing national capacities strategically-for example, by mobilizing former government officials and senior local consultants. Although a main reason for making an extra effort to engage national capacities for the ERA was the particularly difficult environment with very limited international presence and an extremely urgent time frame to deliver the assessment, it provides some useful transferable lessons.
The issue of training and capacity development was initially addressed through an HQ-based training approach, targeting staff directly or potentially involved with PCNAs. These efforts were described as heavy and costly and seem to have delivered limited returns because trained staff rarely made it to a joint assessment exercise. Staff rotation and availability and a reluctance to train staff for fear of losing them, also hinder capacity. Good practices developed more recently, in Pakistan and Ukraine, for example, have focused on in-country training and thorough briefings before the assessment process. Moving forward, several interlocutors pointed out that training should focus on imparting key experiences from previous assessments and team-building practices. It should also focus on the methodology. Interlocutors suggested that partners have paid little attention to educating senior country-based leaders on the Joint Declaration and joint assessment processes and should focus on integrating this background as part of briefing heads of delegations and country offices during in-briefings on the partnership.

Broader Partnerships
Recent PCNA experience suggests that working in partnerships with a broader range of organizations, in particular regional organizations and banks, in complex regions where multilateral organizations have not had major footprints, could be an important feature of future engagement.
Broader partnerships have been a significant feature of well-run joint assessments in Georgia, Pakistan, and Republic of Yemen. In Georgia, the broad involvement of the international financial institutions enabled access to a much greater range of capacities and allowed the stakeholders to develop a unified multilateral perspective to bilateral donors who would (eventually) fund recovery and development. (These institutions included the International Monetary Fund, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the International Finance Corporation.) In Republic of Yemen, the LAS provided significant awareness of the regional context to the assessment process and played a significant cultural and communicative role with Yemeni counterparts. The participation of the Asian Development Bank was critical in the Pakistan assessment, given its long-standing relationship with and deep knowledge of the country.
The new partnership on PCNA that is being explored with the LAS is both strategic and necessary. For Joint Declaration partners, it could facilitate greater access to regional knowledge and key players and add greater legitimacy to future assessment exercises in complex and unfamiliar political environments. It could also contribute to the sustainability of the engagement beyond an assessment. For the LAS, partnering on PCNAs with established multilateral institutions provides access to a wealth of knowledge and expertise on undertaking assessment processes as the number and variety of complex crises increases. A close partnership with the LAS would help internal LAS efforts to build a pan-Arab crisis resolution network, covering crisis response, early warning, and aid operations. It is understood that the next phase of the EU-LAS partnership could focus on building the latter's capacity on joint assessment processes, following the March 2014 familiarization workshop in Cairo. Transferring knowledge to and building the capacity of regional bodies to approaches and models that have been experienced elsewhere should also be seen as common objectives of the Joint Declaration partners. 16

Finding 2: Streamlining Design and Management of Joint Assessments
Experiences show that good preparatory work, flexible design, and effective management arrangements shape good joint assessments, even under urgent deadlines. The current PCNA methodology and recent practice recognize the need for substantive preparatory work, flexibility, innovation, and greater focus on strategic priorities as opposed to sectors, all of which have been pursued with varying degrees of success since 2008. Further streamlining of the methodology, considering different typologies of PCNAs and management arrangements and enhancing synergies with other processes from the outset, are required for PCNAs to be attractive and manageable for Joint Declaration and national partners.

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Review of Experiences With Post-Conflict Needs Assessments

Focus on the Pre-Assessment Phase
Experiences with post-2008 PCNAs and joint assessments show that, although at times a sense of urgency may prevail and may lead to quick deployment of assessment teams and processes, ultimately it is more important to plan well than to act fast. This tension, and striking the right balance between the need to respond to urgent recovery priorities while considering longer-term needs and between strategic versus comprehensive assessment, are difficult dilemmas to manage and require good preparation and flexibility. Several interlocutors commented that substantive preparatory work had been completed for the processes they were involved with; a roughly equal number of people said there should be more focus on this critical phase.
Dedicating enough time and resources to the pre-assessment phase was recommended by the 2006-07 review and was a key component of the PCNA Joint Guidance. This has proven to be a valuable and a successful strategy in assessments conducted in the past few years and was so considered by this review. Good pre-assessment preparation in some of the case studies enabled (i) defining the scope of and setting clear objectives and priorities for the assessment (including cross-cutting issues and synergies with other processes); (ii) agreeing on core analytical work to be undertaken (including undertaking or considering existing conflict analysis and data gathering by using techniques that do not require field presence, such as satellite imagery, to assess damages in ongoing conflicts); (iii) conducting the necessary consultations to promote national ownership; and (iv) identifying the most appropriate approach.
A range of documents (or documented discussions) should normally be considered and systematically taken into account during the pre-assessment planning for a PCNA. Conflict analysis, in particular, should be the fundamental basis for designing the overall exercise and informing the identification of priority areas for the assessment. 17 If these resources are not available they should be commissioned, either in-house or using external expertise. The review team has found little evidence to suggest that conflict analysis have been key drivers in assessment processes (Pakistan aside). Rectifying this lapse in the process should be a core task and help the institutions to develop clear strategies and approaches for future PCNAs.
The review team heard concerns on a number of occasions that meeting requirements to fulfil all of the documentation at the start of an assessment would make assessment processes more burdensome. 18 But this should not be the case. The key to faster future processes will be not to reinvent the wheel every time an assessment is considered. In most instances, a wealth of existing data and analysis is available or could be accessed within and among the Joint Declaration partners, including conflict analysis, up-to-date awareness of political developments, and awareness of key actors and national capacities. However, analytical processes to understand available material have been overlooked in favor of undertaking work in field. Skipping this step misses a major opportunity to strategically define assessment scope and objectives, which would make assessments lighter and more targeted. Existing data should be processed to develop clear strategic rationale for PCNAs (for example, to promote peacebuilding or support reconstruction). It could form a reconstructed baseline built on existing sources, allowing stakeholders to address identified gaps and due diligence with national partners to form the basis of fieldwork. Capitalizing on existing data would be an efficient use of previously generated knowledge and enable the partners to start developing the analytical frameworks far before fielding assessment teams. This is a critical step in ensuring better links among humanitarian, political, security and development action.
Clearly understood and presented evidence would enable senior leaders to engage in strategy discussions at the institutional level and make informed decisions about institutional engagement and better managed processes. At the technical level, investing in clarifying the picture upfront will reducing the organizational burden of fielding large missions. Box 4 explains the key analytical processes during pre-assessment that are designed to ensure strategic PCNAs and some of the readily available internal sources of information that could be exploited to help PCNA teams to understand context and plan effectively.
Preparatory work was critical in Pakistan to frame and deliver a sensitive exercise at the national and subnational levels. Extensive community and stakeholder consultations during the pre-assessment phase informed a conflict analysis, which helped to identify the strategic objectives and priorities for the PCNA, including cross-cutting issues. Without sufficient preparation and consultation it would have been difficult to reach a consensus within the national government and among subnational authorities and communities on sensitive issues in the context of a localized conflict.
In Republic of Yemen, the pre-assessment period determined that a detailed nationwide needs assessment approach was unfeasible and enabled the partners to focus on a lighter methodology based on existing data sources, qualitative and quantitative methods to describe impacts and trends and map causal relationships, and rapid assessments to fill information gaps. This emphasis on doing as much as possible with available resources proved successful in delivering against tight deadlines.
The pre-assessment work in Myanmar helped the partners to understand the potential scope and limitations for a Joint Peace Needs Assessment at a delicate point in the peace process in 2013. Based on extensive consultations with stakeholders in the peace process, the team recommended setting the model against a clear set of risks to the peace process and identified mitigating threshold conditions-such as the requirement for consensus among key actors, ownership, and engagement of government and of armed groups-for the JPNA process to begin. Ultimately, differences of opinion between the key actors identified as critical players for the JPNA (the Myanmar Peace Centre, state and regional government entities, national line ministries, and armed groups) and lack of ownership by ethnic armed groups related to broader tensions in the peace negotiations prevented the process from moving forward. The absence of the JPNA, with the high risks identified of doing more harm than good for the peace negotiations coming quickly to fruition, underscores the importance of the pre-assessment process.

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Review of Experiences With Post-Conflict Needs Assessments

BOx 4 Key Analytical Processes Required for PCNA and Available Resources
Analysis required Rationale Available existing material sources

Analysis of the conflict
Understand the core nature of the conflict and critical interventions required to support peace. Know the extent of international engagement and disengagement owing to conflict and requirements for international support.
Understand the nature of peace and opportunities for intervention in peaceful areas.
• Existing conflict and fragility analysis (UN, EU, World Bank) • Briefing by UNDPA/DPKO desks • Contracted analysis from international experts • New Deal Fragility Assessments

Analysis of political situation
Understand the political environment to establish the feasibility of a PCNA and whether it will support or undermine momentum. Understand the existing level of engagement by one or more partner (e.g., EU representation, UN mission presence).
• Existing UN secretariat assessments • Briefing by country level representatives/analysts • Consultations with HQ, regional level think tanks

Stakeholder and capacity analysis
Required to understand in-country partners and their capacities for leading, owning, or engaging in a joint assessment.
• Briefing by institutions with in-country presence (e.g., UN missions, EU delegations, World Bank country office, UNDP/ UNICEF country offices) • Briefing by UNDPA/DPKO • Briefing from major in-country capacity development program leads (UN, World Bank, and EU)

Risk analysis
Assess the prevailing security environment, future trends, and ability to undertake an in-country assessment.

Mapping existing data and assessment processes
Establish what is already known about the conflict and country context from generic data and existing country programs. This will help to narrow the objectives for the assessment mission.
• Country programs documents • Humanitarian assessments and appeals • New Deal Fragility Assessments • Satellite data • In-house development indicators

Current financial data
Develop a clear picture of in-country financial situation and donor financing architecture to identify existing resources and gaps.
• Country programs • Key donor partner engagement • World Bank-EU-UN dialogue 2.2 Simplified, Flexible, Adaptable Methodology, Approach, and Management Flexible methodologies have been a feature of post-2008 PCNAs. The methodologies include modular and phased assessments and iterative and rapid assessment processes. Some interlocutors commented that not enough guidance was available through the PCNA toolbox to help process design and that the methodology outlined in the PCNA guidance was heavy and rigid, but experiences show a good degree of innovation and adaptability of the PCNA approach. Most assessment exercises undertaken since 2008 have indeed taken the Joint Guidance and adapted it to the context, including applying tools from the PDNA methodology (for example, in Lebanon, Myanmar, Ukraine, Republic of Yemen, and ERA).
Pakistan, Ukraine, and Georgia also had specific, subnational geographical focuses within the framework of a nationally led peacebuilding and recovery strategy. The methodology for the Pakistan PCNA enabled a geographic focus while at the same time addressing nationwide issues. In Ukraine, the assessment focused on the Donbas region while considering the broader implications of internally displaced populations across the country. The ERA is the only assessment so far that aimed for a regional focus. It will be important to draw early lessons from this exercise, given the regional character of some ongoing conflicts.
A key lesson, therefore, from these experiences is that the current methodology is flexible and is being used accordingly. It is also important to note that while it is useful to capture different experiences and propose options (for example, typologies of PCNAs), the design of a specific assessment process is best defined on a case-by-case basis through consultative processes with national stakeholders, as the examples of Pakistan, Ukraine, and Lebanon illustrate.
More than a new set of guidance tools, a more systematic capturing and sharing of lessons and more accessible information about other useful assessment methodologies and tools were mentioned as being of value to help institutionalize greater flexibility and enable lighter approaches to PCNAs. (In particular, the PDNA tool for calculating damages and losses to infrastructure and livelihoods was mentioned.) Several interlocutors specifically welcomed the application of the damage-and-loss assessment tool in the recent Ukraine exercise as providing a welcomed structure and rigor to economic recovery and infrastructure and services costing, and they suggested standardizing the tool for PCNA analysis, as has been the case in PDNA. In the view of the review team, a standard approach to costing recovery elements for PCNA would increase predictability of outputs and build confidence among the partners. The partners could also explore whether it is possible to develop a standard methodology for costing other key post-conflict needs, such as peacebuilding activities or core government capacities.
The different types of approaches pursued in post-2008 PCNA and other joint assessments are summarized in appendix B, figure B.3. An overview of the main approaches in provided in box 5.
Flexibility and different partnership modalities have also been applied to the leadership, management, and engagement approaches by the partner organizations and have been key to avoiding some of the most common problems quoted in relation to PCNAs and mentioned in the previous section and throughout this report (for example, the risk of PCNAs becoming inefficient, heavy, and at times counterproductive processes).
The Lebanon JESIA demonstrates that it is possible for one institution to lead an assessment based on its comparative advantage, with other partners contributing based on their situation and capacities. This can produce highly efficient results but requires careful negotiation beforehand to ensure that all 26 Review of Experiences With Post-Conflict Needs Assessments

BOx 5 Typologies Adopted in Recent Assessments
Type of assessment/approach Main features, per country Modular, phased, iterative, and factual approaches Enable, identify, and address urgent needs in a first phase (e.g., supporting the brokering of a peace agreement, enabling quick implementation of urgent stabilization actions) to be followed by a thorough assessment targeting longer-term policy reform agenda.
Phased and/or iterative assessment and planning, with multiple outputs over the short to medium term have been used in contexts of volatility and high uncertainty, where assessment and planning should be a continuous process to inform identification of priorities, definition of interventions, and mobilization of resources, seen here as a succession of outputs.
While a PCNA might have a medium-term planning horizon, given the nature of the assessment and of the institutions involved with them, fast assessments combining assessment and planning with rapid response has been key to establishing credibility of the process and of national and international interlocutors in some circumstances.
Approaches that enable fast assessments and produce quick impacts may be particularly valuable going forward as they will enable PCNAs to provide quick quality inputs into broader processes of recovery and peacebuilding.
ukraine and Myanmar provide good examples of these approaches. A phased approach was developed to undertake a rapid peace assessment for areas under government control in the Donbas region of Ukraine and other areas in Ukraine affected by the conflict, including those hosting internally displaced populations. Recognizing the complexity of the crisis and balancing that with the government of Ukraine's request for immediate support in recovered areas, the Ukraine assessment team designed a process to provide the government and partners with an analytical and programmatic baseline for recovery efforts to inform short-term recovery needs and strengthen social cohesion and provide an enabling environment for longer-term development.
It was envisaged that a second and possibly third assessment phase would be required for long-term recovery planning.
Ukraine is also considered an example of a fast assessment, delivered in a context of high political uncertainly and continuously changing conditions on the ground.
In Myanmar, the joint World Bank-UN assessment team identified that a bespoke modular assessment process was required, one that could potentially evolve with the ongoing peace process and as part of Myanmar's political and economic transition. The JPNA was designed to roll out in regions where the government and nonstate groups were negotiating ceasefire agreements. The idea was to start small and gradually build confidence, rather than go in big and fail to meet expectations. This approach appears to be best suited to volatile political environments where the capacity to conduct an assessment and the issues that can be assessed depend on progress in key political or security dimensions, but the approach may also fit a high-capacity environment where national actors may be able to quickly pick up on the process (e.g., possibly the case in some situations in the Middle East and North Africa region, MENA). It could have been attempted in a context like Libya, for instance.
A variety of reasons made such flexibility and in some cases speed possible, including senior-level engagement from the government and the institutions, clear leadership, and the specific attention by, and capacity of the design team to identify a methodology and approach that could operate effectively in that particular context.

Comprehensive and "good enough" assessments
Interlocutors during this review mentioned the tension between comprehensiveness, which is considered one of the added values of PCNAs and of the engagement by the three institutions, and what some defined as "good enough" assessments," suggesting that the latter may be more appealing approaches to operating in complex, fast-changing contexts.
Evidence from the case studies suggest that not all assessments The 2012 Republic of Yemen JSEA relied primarily on existing data sources produced by the government of Republic of Yemen, civil society groups, multilateral institutions, and bilateral engagements to develop a baseline for the situation in Republic of Yemen prior to the conflict. Rapid assessments were undertaken to complete information gaps, and qualitative and quantitative methods were used to describe impacts and trends and map causal relationships. The JESEA was to serve as a platform for assessing development requirements and strategic planning for future engagements, as the government of Republic of Yemen was required to do under the 2011 Gulf Cooperation Council Initiative and Implementation Mechanism. The process was governed by an acknowledgment that the process carried risks, including in regard to the quality of the partners agree to the approach. The UN took a lead of the ERA (partly helped by the fact that it was mandated by the UN secretary-general) while working in close collaboration with the World Bank and the EU. In Ukraine, a tripartite management and coordination mechanism seems to have worked and took advantage of each institution's comparative advantage.
In recent assessment exercises (Ukraine and Republic of Yemen), institutions have been assigned overall coordination responsibility for delivering sector analysis and report writing. This approach is well received across the three institutions and welcomed in particular for reducing some of the coordination challenges associated with joint leadership arrangements at the technical level (such as for writing processes in Pakistan). Learning from the Ukraine assessment, it is important for the institutions to think carefully about assigning lead roles and to ensure that the right level of technical expertise is applied to analytical work to avoid writing and rewriting, which can significantly delay deadlines. Experiences shared by interlocutors involved with PDNAs or hybrid exercises indicate that this division of labor is established practice for other methodologies.
Despite some good examples, experiences emerging from case studies and repeated comments by informants interviewed for this review about the Type of assessment/approach Main features, per country require urgent mobilization and results, and not all assessment must be perfect before moving toward programming and implementation.
data, and that the political environment remained volatile and security situation fragile.

Other models combining elements of PCNA, PDNA, and other methodologies
This is feasible and can be successful. Both PCNA and PDNA methodologies enable borrowing from and complementing each other.
Their key tools and approaches can be complimentary, for example, the Damage and Loss Assessment is a helpful standardized formula that can be applied to post-conflict reconstruction costs, while conflict analysis or conflict sensitivity could be applied in disaster environments emerging from conflict or prone to conflict, such as in Nepal. Such collaboration should be pursued and should be institutionalized through closer links between the PCNA and PDNA groups at global and country levels (e.g., through the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction and the new proposed PCNA governance structure).
Other models have been used in the Lebanon JESIA and Gaza, and with the ERA. Most recently, the ERA broadly followed key process steps for conducting a PCNA/PDNA while applying tools and principals from both methodologies to determine a joint strategic response required in support of the governments of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. For example, the ERA applied PDNA costing tools to determine infrastructure needs and "build back better" requirements across health, water, and sanitation, services and infrastructure. The ERA also applied a conflict lens to the emergency response, identifying requirements for addressing the impact of the crisis on social cohesion and strengthening governance systems and processes, which have both been undermined by the crisis and at the same time stem from protracted periods of conflict in the region.
In Lebanon the agreed on output (a report for the government to present at high level forums, including the UN General Assembly) was produced in two months, which was critical in order to seize political momentum. The ability of the World Bank to mobilize resources early on in the process helped create confidence and trust among stakeholders and enabled urgent priorities to be addressed early on, pending the more comprehensive Economic and Social Impact Assessment.

BOx 5 Typologies Adopted in Recent Assessments (continued)
uneven engagement by partners point to the need to clarify the issue of participation in PCNAs. The Joint Declaration partners would benefit from reaching a clear agreement on options that enable partners to engage flexibly, depending on the context and their own situation and capacity. While equal commitment to a process was mentioned as critical for the partnership, this appears to have been interpreted to mean equal participation or representation in assessments, which is problematic for designing light and nimble exercises and for the EU, in particular, which does not always have available in-house capacity. As experiences suggest, and the practical reality of the partner organizations and the context in which PCNAs are undertaken or considered determines, equal participation by all partners may simply be neither possible nor desirable.
Regarding the methodology, the 2007 Joint Guidance captured many of the good practices that emerged from the pre-2008 PCNAs and reappeared during this review, in particular the need for flexibility and adaptability. The limited knowledge of the methodology and what it entails among key stakeholders in the partnership and in PCNAs, however, suggests that it should be better communicated within and across institutions and to external partners.
Interviews conducted and country material analyzed for this review did not identify major flaws in the key steps of the methodology or tools, and no interlocutor suggested the need for a substantive review of the methodology. On the contrary, many informants acknowledged that complex analytical processes are inherently extensive and require significant planning and review when involving multiple institutions. The different approaches taken and outcomes from assessments in the countries reviewed show that the methodology can be applied differently depending on the context. Apart from the Georgia JNA, no one process has taken a linear approach to implementing the methodology and not all of the steps have been followed in every case. Assessment timeframes have ranged between two months (Lebanon) and 11 months (Pakistan). The Georgia JNA, which seems to be the most comprehensive assessment process to date, was completed in three months, between August 2008 andOctober 2008. 19 This suggests that efficiencies will not be found not by cutting back on the methodology and tools, although streamlining and updating could help, but through addressing the way processes are approached and handled.

Synergies and Collaboration
All the joint assessments examined during this review took place in contexts where other assessments and planning processes were being carried out individually or jointly by international partners (multilateral or bilateral) and in some instances national actors. These include humanitarian assessments, EU comprehensive approaches, UN strategic assessments and planning in UN integrated missions and engagement by the PBC, and a range of conflict, political economy, and risk analyses. There are also traditional development planning processes and related analytical and assessment work (for example, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, UN Development Assistance Frameworks, country strategies) and individual assessments undertaken by agencies to design their own country strategies, programs, and financing portfolios. The New Deal fragility assessment is promoted by the g7+ group as the country-owned and -led exercise to assess fragility, and increasingly partners are engaging with resilience as a key approach to address situations of vulnerability, including in countries where PCNAs have been conducted. PDNAs have also taken place where PCNAs or similar joint assessments were conducted, and the demand for greater complementarity between the two processes is likely to grow, as an increasing number of countries and regions are likely to be exposed simultaneously to both natural disasters and conflict. This review has found little documented evidence to suggest a systematic effort to bring coherence among different assessment and recovery planning processes in the case study countries. Nor is greater collaboration across humanitarian, peace and security, political, and development communities pursued by or promoted through PCNAs. Interestingly, some interlocutors were surprised that objectives such as streamlining or aligning assessments and cross-community collaboration should or could be pursued through PCNAs.
This being said, experiences with PCNAs and PDNA point to a range of options for enhancing synergies between the two processes, as explained in box 6.
In some instances, links and synergies were promoted through individually driven engagement, built on preexisting coordination mechanisms or were enabled by the high profile of a crisis and the related political drive of stakeholders to work together. Strong government leadership and ownership of the process may also be a factor that favors synergies. Some good practice examples on promoting greater synergies include the following: • Georgia: An integrated assessment approach in Georgia promoted links between humanitarian and recovery or development planning processes. The JNA was undertaken at the same time as the revision of the Humanitarian Flash Appeal, allowing each process to complement the other and creation of an integrated JNA budget that gave donors the full picture of the required financing for humanitarian, recovery, and development activities. Several activities were undertaken bilaterally prior to the deployment of the JNA, including an economic mission by the World Bank (in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund) and a damage assessment, which included satellite imagery by the European Commission. A dynamic process between the JNA partners allowed them to incorporate the findings of these activities in the JNA and in turn feed the JNA process back into their work. • Ukraine: There was regular contact between RPA and humanitarian actors leading up to the deployment of the RPA team and during the early stages of the assessment. However, it remains to be seen whether humanitarian interventions will be reflected upon in a future RPA results strategy. • Lebanon: Regular, senior-level coordination between the JESIA team, led by the World Bank and the UN, including humanitarian actors, in a high-profile crisis situation with strong government leadership enabled the building of synergies and complementarity among different assessment and planning processes. The JESIA, for example, provided the basis for follow-up assessments, including the resilience and humanitarian assessments, and for planning by the government and the UN around displacement and livelihood issues, among others.
Some interlocutors commented that promoting synergies may also mean deciding not to undertake a PCNA (for example, if there is a nationally

BOx 6 Existing and New Synergies between PCNAs and PDNAs
Synergies between PCNA and PDNA methodology already exist: • The PDNA model, which many interlocutors described as well designed and well managed, derives from the 2007 PCNA guidelines and mirrors many of its process steps and management mechanisms (albeit, guidance is contemporary). These include the Damage and Loss Assessment tool for thematic sectors and a commitment to producing a simple recovery framework (the Transitional Results Framework), for example. • Approaches that borrow from both PCNA and PDNA methodologies have been pursued, for instance, in Lebanon, for the ERA, and to an extent in Ukraine. In these cases the PDNA approach to assessing sectoral needs, which has been instrumental in establishing predictability around PDNAs, was useful, which suggests that it could be usefully applied to other conflict environments. In Pakistan the PCNA built to a great extent on the experience with PDNA, in terms of both methodology and acquired capacities, in particular of national staff.
The cases studies and the interviews suggest some very practical options to enhance complementarity: • Where the two assessments are not conducted at the same time in a crisis-affected situation or when hybrid approaches are not chosen, there is scope for PDNA to borrow qualitative assessment methodologies and conflict-sensitive approaches used for PCNA, which can provide an in-depth understanding of the underlying causes of fragility and risk factors in countries that face sudden onset disasters or multiple stresses (for example, Ebola-affected countries). Conflict analysis could also be useful in developing a disaster recovery framework in conflict environments to ensure interventions "do no harm" (for example, the 2014 Bosnia and Serbia PDNA considered protection issues, usually PCNA territory) or to ensure consideration of how special groups in a conflict environment have been affected by a disaster. • Building on the positive examples of Ukraine and the ERA, PCNA could more systematically consider using damage and loss assessment tools for the quantitative components of an assessment. • There were several suggestions about how to bridge the divide between "conflict people" and "disaster people" and to identify concrete and practical ways to enhance synergies between the two processes: • Promote cross-learning through joint sharing of lessons and best practices • Provide joint training for staff with experiences in the two approaches • Hold regular HQ-based interactions between the teams in charge of the two processes • Systematically deploy mixed teams owned and led fragility assessment in line with the New Deal approach) or to undertake a PCNA only when there is a clear added value. Such value could be, for instance, adding a quantitative and costing element to other qualitative assessments (for example, conflict analysis, fragility assessments) or covering new and/or emerging areas of interest that were not covered by other exercises (such as assessing some economic aspects of a crisis). If, as most interlocutors suggested during this review, the key added value of PCNAs is its ability to provide a unified and coherent assessment and response in conflict-affected situations, and if the recommendations of this report for greater, more strategic, and preventive use of joint assessments in countries most in need are taken forward, it will be even more important to ensure that PCNA fits with other country-level processes and vice versa, and when possible it will provide a platform for different efforts to come together. In addition to some good examples highlighted previously, feedback received during this review suggests that opportunities exist to push in this direction. On the UN side, DPKO, PBSO, and Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) expressed interest in further discussions about better links between PCNA process and mission, peacebuilding, and humanitarian planning, respectively. The g7+ secretariat, the key promoter on behalf of g7+ countries of the New Deal's country-led fragility assessment, "one vision and one plan, " also expressed the need to ensure that greater synergies between PCNAs and similar joint assessment processes and their own efforts to assess fragility in g7+ countries. It was suggested that this could include looking at aligning PCNAs and the approach proposed by the New Deal in g7+ countries, exploring options for combining methodologies or interoperability between tools.
On a practical level, and based on experiences examined during this review, ensuring synergies and coordination with other assessment processes will depend on good design and management of a joint assessment process, in particular on a good pre-assessment phase, which should include a mapping of existing or ongoing assessment.

Finding 3: Ensuring Implementation and Results
PCNAs have had mixed success in producing concrete outcomes, and there is limited evidence to suggest that they influence individual or cross-system strategies and funding decisions. In some instances the challenges of sustaining the momentum to implement an often broad range of priorities once the assessment is over has undermined follow-up. In reality, the context has by then changed, and implementation can take different forms. PCNA and other similar joint assessments, for instance, have been used to provide specific contributions to broader recovery and peacebuilding processes. TRMs may at times be useful mechanisms and compacts or mutual accountability frameworks could help bring partners together around the implementation of a peacebuilding strategy to which a joint assessment contributes. Although the link between assessment and financing should be considered flexibly, a more systematic use of existing funding instruments for crisis response could be considered in the contexts of PCNA implementation. Partner organizations could do more to align their own programs and funding to reflect the outcomes of joint assessments.
Before 2008, the expectation for joint assessments had been to deliver a coherent and strategic plan for post-conflict interventions managed through the TRM or similar coordination mechanisms. Historically, results frameworks have been linked particularly to the need to support national authorities in defining priorities and aligning international assistance (especially in low-capacity, post-conflict settings) when waiting for a traditional government-implemented national plan would be impractical. Results matrices seem to have been abandoned, for reasons that include their lack of capacity to prioritize and mobilize adequate funding.
As mentioned in the Joint Declaration and by most interlocutors interviewed for this review, joint assessment processes should do the following: • Provide inputs to national recovery and peacebuilding strategies and plans • Improve and/or align existing individual or cross-system strategies, programs, and funding of international partners • Develop new initiatives and funding to support the implementation of the findings of a joint assessment (for example, pool funding) • Enhance aid and development effectiveness by promoting bettercoordinated and coherent donor engagement in crisis and post-crisis contexts, including through joint programming.
Overall, this review has found limited documented evidence that recent PCNAs or similar joint assessments have consistently had this level of impact, although efforts in that direction have been made. The Georgia JNA is the most comprehensive example, resulting in a funded and monitored recovery strategy. This, and experiences from the Pakistan PCNA, Lebanon JESIA, and Republic of Yemen JSEA are summarized in box 7.
The main shift that could be observed is toward promoting models that enable conducting assessments and implementation in a phased or iterative way. The Ukraine RPA, for instance, was designed to enable a rapid assessment of the most urgent needs and the design of immediate responses, while leaving the space for a more thorough assessment and the identification of and support to longer-term reform agenda. In Myanmar the JPNA was conceived as a progressive exercise that would accompany the progress with the peace process, making available resources to deliver peace dividends at a time where limited funding and support were available.
The impact of assessments on the World Bank, EU, and UN countryspecific programming has also been difficult to determine. Consultations on the ongoing Ukraine RPA and the Republic of Yemen JSEA were able to point to specific influences of assessment on individual institutions but not a comprehensive picture of how assessments shape programming and funding. The review noted that pooled funding mechanisms have been established or are being considered in most instances where a joint assessment was conducted. 20 More details on each case study are provided in box 7.

BOx 7 PCNA Implementation
The Georgia JNA recovery and reconstruction program was strongly supported by donors. Following a donor conference in October 2008, two progress reports were published (June 2009 and2010). The development of a macroeconomic framework and identification of external financing and fiscal needs were undertaken to frame the JNA and create realistic expectations. JPNA partners also remained in close dialogue with principal donors and bilateral partners to maintain their support for the outcomes. The reports indicate that the partners and donors were successful in coordinating support to address key issues affecting stability: for example, resettlement of internally displaced persons, infrastructure restoration, and service delivery. Approximately 50 percent of donor pledges had not materialized by the second progress report. The review has not seen progress reports relating to phase three of the recovery program (2010-11).
The Lebanon JESIA was designed to provide a rapid analytical framework and findings for social and economic needs for presentation at the 68 th UN General Assembly in September 2013. The report was followed by the Stabilization Roadmap in October 2013, which identified sequenced areas, programs, and projects required to mitigate impacts of the Syria crisis as identified in the JESIA. A Multi-Donor Trust Fund was completed in December 2013, but so far grants received have been small compared to the needs identified, which has limited the ability of partners to implement the roadmap.
The Pakistan PCNA produced an extensive, 12-page framework in support of a government-owned peacebuilding strategy. Although the review has been unable to obtain a final TRM and/or progress reports on implementation, it understands that a follow-up PCNA is being planned. Some interlocutors pointed out that the framework is so extensive that it represents a compendium of agency-pushed recommendations and not a strategic set of selective interventions.
The Republic of Yemen JSEA was intended to measure the social and economic impact of the crisis in Republic of Yemen and to identify opportunities for alignment between partners in the context of multiple assessment processes under way concurrently, including the Joint UN Framework to Support the Transition in Republic of Yemen (2012), UN Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan (2012), and UN Development Assistance Framework 2011. The assessment had the clear objective to provide inputs (fill gaps) in the nationally led peacebuilding plan. Others saw in it an opportunity to realign their programs and funding. Following the JSEA, the World Bank produced an Interim Strategy Paper outlining its engagement priorities in support of Republic of Yemen, and the EU reported that the assessment underlined that its programming for Republic of Yemen was "on track. " It was not possible to determine whether the JSEA had any bearing on UN system programs or processes in Republic of Yemen.
The Ukraine assessment team is aiming to deliver a budgeted results framework, although agencies report difficult negotiations on priorities. The World Bank indicated that it is planning a midterm review of its country portfolio following the final RPA and that the document is being used to inform its Ukraine lending program. Similarly, the EU indicated that project ideas have been identified by the EU delegation for implementation and may be under development. A key test of the Ukraine process will be whether a joint action plan is developed between the partners and coordinated on the ground through the first phase of the assessment.
The review notes that there is not a central body for tracking implementation or progress of implementation, which makes the task of monitoring performance and determining value of the joint approach inherently difficult. Across all three institutions, interlocutors lamented the poor track record in focusing assessments. The inability of the partners to address priority needs related to the conflict, develop appropriate responses, and translate them into action (focusing on outcomes instead of sectors) was consistently raised as a key concern. The major challenge remains being able to focus an assessment specifically on a core set of issues that are critical to peacebuilding and statebuilding rather than on broad, traditional sectors aligned with Millennium Development Goals. (See appendix C for an overview of the scope and level of prioritization of joint assessments examined for this review).
The review team was not able to identify any current example of a process or mechanism that enables good prioritization in regard to translating findings of an assessment into action. Anecdotally, there is still too much focus on "who does what" and protecting institutional turf-in spite of the spirit of cooperation outlined in the Joint Declaration and the specific modalities for cooperation between the UN and World Bank. 21 Interlocutors discussing the Ukraine exercise, for example, noted that while the phased approach was entirely relevant, the focus for the phases was ultimately still very broad and not entirely reflective of what is achievable given the fragility of the situation.
Besides suggesting that prioritization must be based on clear objectives established at the outset, the review team, based on the evidence provided, has identified the need for a political-level negotiation rather than a technical process to establish priorities. Based on best practices suggested by, for instance, the OECD-Development Assistance Committee (DAC) transition financing guidance and the New Deal, a compact or mutual accountability framework-like mechanism may be an interesting way to approach the issues of implementation and of prioritizing implementation of the findings of PCNAs.
Material reviewed and consultations point to an overall fatigue with assessment process as being a key barrier to further collaboration among Joint Declaration partners beyond assessments. In other words, there seems to be little energy and time available for complex discussions about further collaboration to address needs following assessment processes.
More attention to financing and availability of resources at the start of assessment process is required. In line with the current methodology, financing strategies and availability of resources to support assessments have not been considered as part of early planning of PCNAs conducted since 2008. Understanding the budget envelope before starting an assessment would help the Joint Declaration partners make strategic decisions about the focus of a joint assessment and approach it with a realistic sense of achievable outcomes and priorities. To emphasize the point, having a clear understanding of the macroeconomic environment and availability of resources was critical to the delivery of the Georgia JNA team's ability to deliver an assessment and recovery framework within three months. On the Ukraine assessment, the review was informed that work on financing did not start until the last day of the substantive process in December 2014.
In general, starting difficult negotiations late in any process allows little time to address complex issues, and it is easy for partners to walk away from the negotiating table. Specifically for PCNAs, the end of a process is when the institutions are tired from working with each other. Early thinking and senior engagement are desirable and even necessary given the potentially high-risk implications for the partner organizations and for national partners: for example, the risk that recovery and peacebuilding strategies remain unsupported or that significant changes may be required in the engagement by partners.
Several interlocutors raised concerns that focus on financing can distort the incentives of national and international partners. For example, national partners may engage with the sole objective of getting funding, or UN agencies may see joint assessments as fund-raising opportunities. Importantly, it can obscure urgent needs such as technical and advisory support, which might be equally or more valuable than financing. This is particularly the case in middle-income contexts, where resources are not the most critical deficit for the host government. The Libya LCNA and early exercises in Iraq, for example, overlooked the fact that the government did not require financing for medium-to long-term reconstruction, but rather needed immediate technical assistance and limited funds to address urgent priorities, such as focusing immediately on the demobilization of militia in Libya. Some interlocutors commented that delinking the assessment from funding may lead to more genuine and effective assessment processes, as it would reduce the engagement of those parties whose main focus is on fund-raising opportunities.
Finally, the review notes that each partner organization has flexible funding instruments that could be used strategically to provide catalytic support and early results in crisis situations, particularly where peacebuilding and stabilization are immediate priorities: the UN Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), the World Bank Statebuilding and Peacebuilding Fund, and the EU Instrument Contributing to Stability and Peace. Since 2008, these funds have not been applied systematically to bolster joint assessments. They present an opportunity for the Joint Declaration partners to bring their collective weight to promote early strategic action following an assessment (and/or to support the assessment itself) and provide momentum to peacebuilding and recovery efforts while more detailed assessments are carried out or other funding streams are being mobilized. 22

Finding 4: Promoting Nationally Owned and Inclusive Processes
Partner organizations recognize national ownership and the participation of a broad range of national actors, in particular nonstate actors, as an important component of joint assessments in crisis-affected contexts, as reflected in the PCNA guidance. Experiences since 2008 present some good examples, but overall there is little documented best practice in regard to promoting national ownership and inclusiveness. In some cases, leadership by national authorities was the driving factor behind a joint assessment. In others, efforts were made to engage national actors at different levels throughout the process. At times, concerns about the legitimacy of national actors or the urgency to act made it difficult to ensure full national ownership. Going forward, greater efforts are required to identify and document best practices to promote national ownership and the inclusion of a range of actors, including nonstate actors, from the outset of a joint assessment and to support national capacities to engage in the PCNA process. Partner institutions need to decide whether joint assessment processes should be pursued in the absence of legitimate national authorities and where engaging other national actors is particularly challenging.
The review team did not visit any of countries where joint assessments have been conducted and could interact only with a limited number of national actors involved with PCNAs, which limits the capacity of this review to draw detailed conclusions on the issue of national ownership. This said, the interviews conducted for this review suggest that since 2008 there has been progress in promoting national ownership and leadership of assessment processes in line with the institutional commitment to aid and development cooperation effectiveness, including for fragile situations, to PCNA revised guidance. The Georgia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Ukraine, and Republic of Yemen assessments reportedly had strong national actor engagement in framing and to different degrees participating in the assessment process. These exercises delivered nationally owned end products, for example, priority coordination frameworks in Georgia and Ukraine, contribution to a national planning process in Pakistan and Republic of Yemen, and a government roadmap in Lebanon. Where national ownership and leadership was weaker or could not be ensured, PCNA processes have unraveled (Libya) or not progressed beyond the design stage (Myanmar). Lessons in regard to national ownership from the ERA, the only joint assessment that took place in g7+, New Deal countries, need to be drawn.
Overall, although more evidence is required, these experiences suggest that national ownership and inclusiveness have been pursued in different ways and at different levels: • Ownership at the outset: Most post-2008 joint assessments followed a demand by national authorities. This is a key recognized criterion for mobilizing the partnership and joint assessment processes. In some instances, however, the lack of legitimacy of national authorities made it difficult to ensure national ownership, despite and expressed demand, such as in Libya. Whether the partnership and joint assessments exercises should be mobilized in the absence of a clear demand from a recognized authority is an issue that deserves senior-level discussion and agreement. Interestingly some commentators, including a representative of a government that undertook a PCNA, suggested the need to interpret national ownership flexibly; at times, a government itself may be fine with " commissioning" a joint assessment exercise and engaging at key political moments without needing to be involved throughout the technical process. • Leadership and engagement by national authorities throughout the process: In Pakistan, government counterparts were associated at the highest political level and across the government in the capital and the provinces at all stages of the design and implementation process. This enabled national ownership and an increase in capacities of local authorities, which was key to ensuring follow-up. In Lebanon and Ukraine, high-level government engagement, established coordination mechanisms, consultations with the relevant national counterparts, and the use of national capacities delivered what are considered as nationally owned products. The proactive use of national experts that formerly held government positions were mentioned as ways to ensure good connection with national authorities in particularly challenging contexts, such as in the Ebola-affected countries.

• Consultation with national actors, including nonstate actors:
Most informants consulted during this review highlighted the importance of ensuring the inclusion of key national actors, including nonstate actors and women, and to conduct broad national and subnational consultations. Post-2008 experiences show a mixed record in terms of how inclusive the processes have been and, in particular, their capacity to engage nonstate actors. In Pakistan, the need for extensive consultations with communities was identified at the outset as key to the success of the exercise and included field visits and focused group discussions with multiple stakeholders. The design of the Myanmar JPNA had included extensive consultations with local communities and nonstate actors as a key element of a modular assessment process and a key priority in the context of the ongoing peace process.
A number of political and operational challenges in adhering to the national ownership principle were highlighted, including the following: • Legitimacy of the government and/or status of national actors (for example, nonstate actors), which may make it undesirable or impossible to partner with all or some of them (for example, the transitional government in Libya and nonstate groups in Gaza). • Limited access to parts of the country (for example, Ukraine, Myanmar, and Ebola-affected countries) • Limited capacities of national partners and more pressing priorities, such as dealing with conflict (presence and leadership by international partners may be welcome) • Highly sensitive political or peace processes (for example, Myanmar) • Capacity asymmetries between national and international staffs, which slows assessment processes • Different working cultures between multilateral organizations and national governments, which often make it easy for the multilaterals to push ahead of the others Box 8 summarizes some of the good and challenging experiences in dealing with national ownership and inclusiveness.
These experiences suggest that there is space for improvement. This review has seen no documented evidence, for example, of engagements between the partner organizations and host country counterparts prior to a request letter being sent to the HQ of one or more of the organizations. Indeed, many interlocutors could not point to how and why a PCNA evolved in the first place.
The key moments to establish national ownership appear to be the decision-making time on whether to undertake a joint assessment and during the pre-assessment phase. In particular, scoping missions appear to be valuable opportunities to undertake a stakeholder's assessment and consultations with national actors (for example, Myanmar and Ukraine). Pre-assessment planning and briefing workshops with national interlocutors on the PCNA process and methodology also help foster participation of national actors (for example, Georgia, Pakistan, and Ukraine). In-country planning, coordination, and management have at times led to effective engagements with national counterparts, while externally planned and driven assessments have resulted in avoidable oversights and misjudgments, as in the case of Libya, according to interlocutors from two of the partner organizations.
If national ownership is understood as inclusive to all relevant stakeholders in the country and in relation to the crisis, several interlocutors pointed out the following: • National experts, including national civil servants and country-based staff of partner organizations, are often underutilized. This is a critical issue in high-capacity, middle-income, crisis-affected contexts or in contexts with limited presence of international staff.

BOx 8 Who Owns the Needs Assessment?
Positive experience Challenging contexts Georgia: Priorities set by national partners. Government of Georgia leadership and participation throughout the assessment. Assessment framework guided partner support until 2011.

Republic of Yemen:
Framework for assessment was determined by the government of Republic of Yemen. Analysis informed mutual accountability framework. Undertaking the assessment was challenging because key Yemeni interlocutors were not recognized in different parts of the country.
Pakistan: Project was aligned with and contributed to national strategy for peacebuilding. Thorough consultations in regions. Government of Pakistan set objectives and leading. Follow-up requested.
Libya: Request was formulated by the National Transitional Council (NTC). NTC was not perceived as legitimate; different groups in the country claimed authority. NTC could not provide leadership. Extreme volatility. Process abandoned.
ukraine: There was strong government buy-in and participation from the start. Assessment recently concluded with a plan for partnership between the government of Ukraine and the international community to support peacebuilding and reconstruction.
Myanmar: There was limited government involvement in the design phase. Approach was seen by some parties as externally driven. In the end the political situation was too delicate for such an assessment. Assessment stalled after scoping and design mission. Joint assessment still considered useful to provide a common platform for peacebuilding.
• Complicated management and coordination mechanisms that are established for an assessment and run parallel to the existing national mechanisms make it difficult for national partners to engage. • It remains politically and operationally difficult to engage with a range of nonstate actors, as mentioned earlier.
In this particular regard, the review found little documented evidence of proactive effort to integrate available lessons and best practices. The same can be said about engaging with women leaders and groups, something that cannot be accomplished by allocating gender expertise to a joint assessment team or to the management structure.
In regard to situations where there may be no legitimate or trusted authority or stakeholder to engage with, let alone to own and lead joint assessment and recovery planning (for example, Libya today), views seem to differ, and the case studies and interviews did not provide any clear experience or guidance on approaches or best practices in these circumstances. However, they do suggest that senior leadership within the three institutions should discuss, as part of the follow-up to this review, whether these kinds of joint approaches are best suited to environments where legitimacy is challenged in highly contested political environments or where high insecurity impedes access and limits engagement with national authorities and actors. Decisions should be taken on a case-by-case basis.

Recommendations
The following recommendations propose ways to address the issues identified in this report. The option paper that will be prepared at the request of the review reference group will propose concrete decision-making points for the senior leadership of the three partner organizations, based on these recommendations. Following such discussions, some of these recommendations will be taken forward and implemented during phase of this review. Appendix A of this report proposes further details for each recommendation.

Strengthening the Strategic Role of PCNA and the Effectiveness of the Partnership
Recommendation 1: Clarify the strategic role of PCNAs should to reflect the changes in the environment and diverse contribution of PCNAs within broader recovery and peacebuilding processes. PCNA activities and methodology should be better communicated within each institution and to partners. Partners should also consider strengthening institutional and senior-level commitment and governance mechanisms, including through a commitment to standing support capacity within and across partner organizations, building on existing bodies. This would require the following: • Updating the Joint Declaration, including the definition of PCNAs, and defining core principles for joint assessments in crisis and post-crisis contexts as an annexed amendment • Identifying a light but effective senior-level governance and decisionmaking mechanism to effectively mobilize and use of PCNAs • Establishing a dedicated institutional anchor point and effective support capacity within each institution to facilitate collaboration among the partners (for example, a virtual or physical joint secretariat), including responsibility for basic organizational aspects, standard operating procedures, support for coordinated PCNA implementation, and collection of lessons learned.
Recommendation 2: Identify opportunities for and establish broader partnerships to conduct joint assessments with relevant regional institutions, specifically with the League of Arab States, the African Union, regional economic commissions, and regional banks (for example, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Islamic Development Bank). This could be achieved through simple and light mechanisms, such as a standard memorandum of understanding (MOU), staff secondment, joint workshops, and training. Standing MOUs could be established among HQs to facilitate the fast mobilization of partners, and initiatives that could facilitate effective collaboration on PCNAs, such as training, could be considered on an ongoing basis. However, decisions on what partnership to mobilize should be taken on a case-by-case basis.

Ensuring Effective Design, Management, and Implementation of Joint Assessments
Recommendation 3: Ensure that adequate time and senior capacities are invested in the pre-assessment as a key step to identify the scope, strategic objectives, and priorities of an assessment process, as well as the most appropriate methodology and approach, including for implementation and financing. This would require the following: • Ensuring that scoping missions led by senior-level strategic teams are systematically mobilized • Ensuring greater investment in preparatory analytical and consultation work (for example, mandatory conflict analysis, analysis of risks, and mapping of the financial landscape), including a mapping of other key assessment and planning processes (see next recommendation) Recommendation 4: Ensure synergies are built at the outset when the scope, objectives, and methodology and typology for a joint assessment are defined and are built into management and implementation mechanisms. This would include the following: • Mapping other relevant processes (for example, UN integrated assessment and planning processes, PDNAs, and New Deal fragility assessment) in a PCNA's pre-assessment phase and clarifying the specific role and added value of a PCNA in relation to these processes • Agreeing on management and implementation mechanisms that promote synergies and task sharing among different assessment exercises (for example, joint coordination mechanisms, joint teams, and hybrid methodologies) • Deciding to not conduct a PCNA but to provide capacities to other processes and/or to adapt the scope of a PCNA to fill in gaps in existing efforts in order to provide a comprehensive assessment of peacebuilding and recovery needs and priorities Recommendation 5: Integrate further flexibility in the PCNA methodology by streamlining the methodology and process and outlining different typologies for joint assessments-including for implementation and financing-and for partnership arrangements. This would require the following: • Outlining different typologies for conducting assessments and, for implementation, in particular, considering modular or phased and fast assessments in order to enable assessing and responding to immediate priorities, planning for longer-term reform needs, and/or filling gaps in existing response, for example • Considering a range of implementation options: TRMs where useful, compacts or mutual accountability frameworks, specific inputs into national or international recovery and peacebuilding processes, and joint or individual institutional responses (for example, realignment of programs, budgets, and new initiatives)-ultimately each context requires a specific approach • Considering a range of management and partnership arrangements that enable flexible engagement based on the context and capacity of each partner • Outlining options for financing based on a mapping of the financing landscape conducted during the pre-assessment phase, keeping in mind that it may not be necessary to establish a linear implementation-funding relationship-consider a greater use of existing multi-partner funding mechanisms (for example, PBF). • Considering an update to the PCNA guidance to reflect changes in the operation and institutional environment outlined in this report, further simplifying the key steps (core elements and steps) so as to make assessments lighter and to enable greater adaptation to specific contexts and systematically consider lessons emerging from PCNAs.

Promoting Nationally Owned and Inclusive Processes
Recommendation 6: As part of a revamped partnership agreement, ensure institutional commitment to systematically promote national ownership of joint assessment processes from the outset, through processes that are inclusive of key stakeholders, in particular women and nonstate actors, support the building of capacities to engage with such processes, and involve national expertise. This would include the following: • Ensuring that a key task of senior-level scoping missions is to assess the political environment and outline the strategic options for partnership with and inclusion of key national stakeholders • Documenting more systematically, as part of standard lesson learning, experiences with engagement with nonstate actors and in contexts of unclear government legitimacy • Considering whether the partnership and joint assessment processes are best suited for and should be mobilized in contexts with low government legitimacy or in the absence of a national counterpart. incentive structure, and approach to the partnership and to joint assessments was beyond the scope of this review. Also, at the time of the review, the three institutions were undergoing significant internal changes, which made it difficult for the review team to clearly capture some of the internal dynamics and opportunities in regard to PCNAs and to the partnership. 11. The legal basis for EU political engagement in PCNA is provided under Article 21 of the Lisbon Treaty. 12. All three institutions emphasized that DOCO had played a key role coordinating internally within the UN and between partners. The WB and EU found DOCO particularly useful for navigating and managing the complex UN system. 13. An overview of cooperation and coordination mechanisms between the UN and the World Bank are outlined in World Bank (2015), "Working with the United Nations in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations, A Resource note for World Bank Staff. " 14. The last major update to PCNA-related web material and lessons learned exercises appears to have happened in 2010. In 2014, internal training was delivered in the EU. 15. The PCNA roster is long since outdated. DOCO no longer has the human resources to manage the roster or play a significant coordination role in PCNA processes. UNDP is now responsible for PCNA coordination for the UN system, which is considered problematic by many colleagues because UNDP is a "competing agency" within the UN system.
16. Greater cooperation with regional body partnerships are also consistent with the commitment of the multilateral development banks to strengthen collaboration in post-crisis planning and with the New Deal and the broader principles of aid and development effectiveness. 17. The 2007 Joint Guidance Note states, "Regardless of the amount of time available for the pre-assessment, identifying causes and characteristics of the conflict will be particularly important. " See the first paragraph under "The Changing Environment" in this report. 18. Several interlocutors noted that conflict analysis is time consuming and a process around which it is difficult to achieve consensus. Also, it should be noted that each institution has its own internal approach and process for producing core documents, and "outside" processes may not carry weight for internal decision making. These are obstacles that could be addressed with senior leadership engagement. 19. Assessment time frames are detailed in appendix C. For the purpose of this report, the time frame is based on receipt of request from government to publication of the final report. 20. The Myanmar JPNA has initially proposed a special grants facility to support early actions. Interestingly, a joint peace fund is being considered in Myanmar now that the JPNA is not moving forward. 21. See UNDP and World Bank (2008)  hence, these comments are based on PCNA-related documents and interviews with key informants. existing or planning for regular meetings of senior leadership by the three organizations, ensuring dedicated discussions on PCNAs; (ii) establishing a Joint Declaration Steering Committee made of the UN Senior Peacebuilding Group, of which the World Bank is a member, and the relevant EU representation; and (iii) enhancing the role of the existing PCNA Advisory Group, providing it with decision making capacity. A mirror mechanism that brings together the senior country leadership of the three organizations could be established if it is not already in place in countries where joint assessments are conducted. Improved governance and decision-making mechanisms would have the responsibility to promote greater engagement from across the partnership, in particular from political, security, peacebuilding, and gender-focused agencies in UN (for example, DPA, DPKO, PBC, PBSO, and UNWOMEN), the EU, and the humanitarian community. (An example of a governance mechanism can be seen in appendix B, figure B.2.) In addition, ownership and senior-level engagement and decision making should be clarified and strengthened within each organization, and concrete options to further institutionalize PCNAs as part the core business of each institution could be considered. This will require more substantive consultations among and within each institution in a follow-up phase to this review.
A simple but clear protocol for internal decision making and record keeping should be established or revitalized and updated, building on existing practices and experiences.
It is necessary, if the joint commitment is renewed, to dedicate the right type of support and capacities to the joint approach. Without this, a significant burden and a degree of improvisation will continue, and it will be difficult to build on the added value of the partnership.
In addition to clear institutional anchors, a physical or virtual secretariat capacity could be hosted in one of the partner organizations, staffed with representatives from the three partners (in the case of the physical secretariat) and funded by existing trust funds. Close links to the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction could be explored, building on each other's comparative advantages, if this could help promote collaboration across the two communities of practice. This is something that many interlocutors suggested would be mutually beneficial.
In regard to capacity building and training to support PCNAs, the following options, or combinations of them, were suggested: (i) basic training on the strategic aspects of the partnership and joint assessment to be included in regular trainings for staff operating in crisis situations, in particular in seniorlevel standard briefings (for example, UN RC/HC, UNDP resident representatives, country directors, head of delegations, and HQ-based senior staff); (ii) in-country extensive briefing with international and national staff and targeted training of teams undertaking PCNAs; and (iii) HQ-based periodic training of key staff that may be deployed as part of a roaster system.
Information on PCNAs and lessons learned should be disseminated proactively using existing forums (for example, the World Bank Fragility Forum, the OECD-DAC INCAF, and the EU Development days, among others).

Ensuring Effective Design and Management of Joint Assessments
Recommendation 2: Ensure that adequate time and senior capacities are invested in the pre-assessment as a key step in identifying the scope, strategic objectives, and priorities of an assessment process, as well as the most appropriate methodology and approach, including for implementation and financing.
Investing effort, resources, and time, in particular senior staff time in HQ and country offices in the pre-assessment phase, should be a core commitment for engaging with a joint assessment processes. The pre-assessment phase should focus on the following: • Extensive consultations should be held at HQ and in-country offices and field missions and with national authorities and key actors, including representatives of women's groups and nonstate actors. • The pre-assessment analysis (for example, gathering existing analysis and additional data through remote techniques and available sources) should consider, in addition to the mandatory conflict analysis, (contextual) risk assessments, and provisions to undertake such an exercise should be identified at this stage. • Strategic objectives and priorities should be identified, including cross-cutting issues and key peacebuilding priorities (for example, political settlements, security and justice, and the other peacebuilding and statebuilding goals). • The most appropriate assessment methodology and approach should be designed, taking care of ensuring synergies with other processes (for example, PDNA, humanitarian, New Deal fragility assessments and compacts, and resilience). • The management structure should be designed with clear leadership role and partnership arrangements.
Needed resources and capacities and clear arrangements to make them available should also be identified at this stage.
To the extent possible, pre-assessment work should take place at the country level or through scoping missions led by a senior-level strategic team. A concept note from that exercise should be a political document rather than an extensive technical paper, outlining the scope and strategic objectives, typology leadership and management arrangements, and, most important, the role of national actors.
Recommendation 3: Synergies should be built at the very outset when the scope, objectives, and methodology and typology for a joint assessment are defined and should be built into management and implementation mechanisms.
Creating greater synergies with other processes may include mapping what other processes are ongoing-in a given context and globally-and seeing which are complementary of PCNAs. This would also include clarifying the specific role of a PCNA in relation to another process (for example, a New Deal fragility assessment) and vice versa; agreeing on specific mechanisms to promote complementarity of different assessment exercises jointly (for example, coordination team to promote a PCNA, PDNA, humanitarian, or resilience assessment conducted in the same country); and agreeing on sharing tasks among different processes. At times a decision to not conduct a PCNA, but to provide capacities to other processes, should be promoted as the best way to promote synergies at the country level. Partners should commit to streamlining their individual assessment processes as another way to reduce the number of assessments and promote greater synergies.
The following scenarios to promote complementary and synergies could be considered and could also be considered as part of broader PCNA criteria mentioned in recommendation 1: • Existing or ongoing assessment and planning processes, particularly when country-owned and country-led (for example, New Deal fragility assessment) or mandated in the context of a UN Security Council resolution (for example, integrated mission context) are addressing the key priorities and needs identified in a given context. In this case, a decision is taken not to conduct a PCNA. • Other processes exist or are ongoing but they do not provide comprehensive information and there is need to complement them and bring the information together into one coherent joint assessment and planning processes. This could occur as part of a peace process (such as in the case of Myanmar) or in view of a donor conference (for example, concerning humanitarian, resilience, a New Deal fragility assessment might identify a range of priorities but not include an assessment and costing of physical damage due to a conflict). In this case, synergies are proactively identified and a PCNA is designed specifically to complement existing information and data gaps (for example, in Republic of Yemen and Pakistan). • No solid joint assessment is available, and national and international partners agree on the need to conduct a joint assessment. In this case, a sequenced PCNA is designed to bring in all key partners (for example, UN political bodies) and clearly outline who contributes to what (for example, this could transpire in Central African Republic or Syria in the future). • A new crisis breaks out in a context where there may already be a natural disaster, and a PCNA and PDNA must be initiated at the same time. In this case, the two processes are designed and conducted through joint leadership, management, and coordination mechanisms that includes the role of national authorities. • It is worth reiterating one more time that when there is a nationally led process, like a New Deal fragility assessment, this must become the ground for joint assessment and planning, and any additional support by the international community must align to the national process In regard to the key steps to follow to promote greater synergies and collaboration, the following should be considered: • Create synergies at decision-making points, where possible, under national leadership. A renewed Joint Declaration and a strengthened senior-level decision-making structure should make clear the commitment to promoting collaboration across communities and synergies between the range of joint assessments in crisis and post-crisis contexts. To enable effective decisions and guidance, the information in regard to existing, ongoing, and planned assessment and planning processes by national or international partners should be gathered and considered at the time of decision making on whether to conduct a PCNA and what kind of exercise is needed. Senior-level leadership will be also required to ensure that partner organizations do not pursue individual assessment and planning, once a decision to conduct a joint assessment is taken. Where and when national partners are in a position to lead in promoting collaboration and synergies, such a role should be promoted and followed. • Create synergies through design. Ensure that synergies are embedded in the design and management arrangements of a joint assessment, depending on which of the above-mentioned or other scenarios are relevant. When a fragility assessment or a PDNA is ongoing or planned, for instance, a hybrid methodology (Such as a combination of PDNA tools and assessment of peacebuilding related goals) as suggested in earlier chapters, this should be considered. This work should take place in the pre-assessment phase, and continued senior-level engagement throughout the processes should also ensure that such synergies are built on throughout implementation. • Create synergies through effective collaboration among support mechanisms and joint teams. The HQ-level mechanism to support joint assessment and planning and the system set up at the country level should also have as a key responsibility: that of ensuring collaboration across communities and synergies among key processes, including by creating mixed teams with mixed expertise (for example, Disaster Risk Reduction, humanitarian, peace-building, and gender expertise) and institutional affiliation. It should be noted that at times it may be useful to bring in similar expertise from different organizations to build the partnership; however, overall this is not efficient, although it may create opportunities for collaboration in some instances.

Recommendation 4:
Integrate further flexibility in the PCNA methodology by streamlining the methodology and outlining different typologies for joint assessments, including for implementation, financing, and partnership arrangements.
In regard to typologies and approaches, modular, phased, and iterative approaches, as suggested by the findings of this review, appear to be useful options to consider and further institutionalize. Fast assessments should be encouraged, as appropriate. A range of options for different typologies based on the cases examined and the consultations can be found in appendix B, figure B.3.
In regard to the thematic focus, the added value of PCNAs seems to rest in their capacity to combine quantitative and costed assessments of "soft" and "hard" needs and priorities, which can be well captured by hybrid approaches that mix methodologies (to be defined on a case-by-case basis).
Geographical considerations may become more relevant, as the model was designed for country-based processes, whereas in the future, regional crises may demand the use of PCNAs and similar processes. There is insufficient evidence on what works or not in such situations, and it may be useful to draw some lessons from recent experiences, which may help identify the directions for further guidance.
In regard to management and partnership arrangements, and based on feedback from interlocutors, the following division of labor may be considered: roles assigned (i) on a thematic basis (for example, social sectors to the UN, economic sectors to the World Bank, and political dimensions to the EU); (ii) chronologically (for example, the UN intervenes early to conduct an urgent assessment of needs, the World Bank comes in with a longer-term vision); or (iii) on the basis of other practical considerations (for example, field presence, availability of funding, or special relationship with a country).
Arrangements could include different levels of engagement, depending on the partners' capacities and position in the country or in regard to the issues considered: ) full engagement; (ii) engagement at key moments in the process (for example, key events, senior-level decisions), and (iii) silent partnership. The latter could include, for example, providing support and confirming commitment to the partnership approach, while not engaging with the conduct of the process. This model is used by the Nordic donors for their development cooperation in conflict-affected and fragile contexts. These types of arrangements, which should always be agreed at senior, strategic levels and at the outset, could greatly contribute to reducing transactional costs and providing opportunities for greater leadership of each process.
In regard to updating and simplifying the methodology, the following actions for key core elements are suggested and could inform a revision of the methodology and guidance: • Update definitions of PCNAs and of their strategic role to reflect the current operational and institutional environment (tripartite partnership context) and to take account of other key frameworks and processes (for example, New Deal and PDNAs). • Include an updated decision-making structure, as suggested in this report. • Outline different typologies for joint assessments and leadership and management arrangements, as suggested in this report, with specific attention to simplifying proposed arrangements; in particular, include guidance on the coordination structure.
• Update the section on complementarity and synergies with other assessment and planning processes with specific regard to PDNAs, the New Deal, resilience work, and UN-integrated mission frameworks. • Include clear reference to using existing and conducting risk assessment and mapping (for example, in particular contextual risks, in addition to programmatic and institutional risk assessment). • Include financial analysis at the outset of PCNA process to enable the partners to set realistic expectations for an assessment. • Consider developing models, based on emerging practices, and proposing new approaches for joint assessments with regional scope. • Revise the implementation framework and financing strategy components.
• Further streamline the process from the current 22 steps to fewer core steps, to be further developed on a case-by-case basis depending on the chosen approach and typology. A graphic overview of the current steps in the methodology and an example of simplified methodology is in figure  B.4 in appendix B.
Regarding implementation modalities and outcomes, the following could be considered: • Reestablish the use of Transitional Results Frameworks (TRFs), possibly updating them to enable greater prioritization and flexibility, so they can be used in the context of a phased, modular, or incremental PCNA or in different geographical contexts, for example. Transitional Results Matrices may still be the best tool when an assessment of damage and loss is a major component of a PCNA. • Consider using a compact or mutual accountability framework. The advantage of a compact is that it builds the partnership between national and international actors. It provides a space for political dialogue (which may be useful when sensitive peacebuilding issues are discussed), an agreement on key priorities, a funding commitment linked to the priorities, and a mutual accountability framework. A compact can take many shapes or forms and hence can be flexible and adaptable. • Design implementation modalities to provide specific inputs into broader recovery and peacebuilding processes at the country level (for example, national peacebuilding strategy, UN integrated mission planning, specific inputs for major events), enabling a capacity to respond to urgent priorities (for example, going straight to implementation without the need for the additional step of translating findings into a prioritized plan) as well as longer term needs. • Partners could consider strengthening their commitment to use available, flexible funding mechanisms (for example, multi-partner trust funds, including the PBF, for instance) for initial, catalytic support. Donors could be encouraged to channel the funding that they would otherwise commit individually following an assessment, or through ad hoc mechanisms to such existing instruments. Clearer linkages will need to be made between the Joint Declaration engagements and the existing funding mechanisms. A clear reference in the Joint Declaration and in the governance arrangements to utilize flexible funds for catalytic impact and to include specific PCNA-related criteria in existing criteria for the mobilization of such funds could be pursued. • In other circumstances there will not be a linear relationship between assessment and funding. In these cases the outcomes of a joint assessment may be funded partly or entirely through a national budget and loans or other funding instruments. A mapping of the funding landscape will be a key part of a PCNA processes in order to identify the best financing approach. • In all circumstances the three institutions should proactively and systematically consider realignment of existing country strategies, programs and funding, and/or the development of new initiatives to reflect the finding of a joint assessment.

Promoting Nationally Owned and Inclusive Processes
Recommendation 5: Ensure commitment to systematically promote national ownership and leadership of joint assessment processes from the outset, through processes that are inclusive of all key stakeholders, in particular women and nonstate actors, and support the building of capacities to engage with such processes and involve national expertise. In considering options for and a commitment to ensuring a systematic engagement with and ownership by national partners, the following should be considered: • National ownership and leadership should be built into the process, starting from the initial decision making (for example, by establishing a clear mechanism for senior-level consultations with national actors) to the implementation and follow-up. • Transparency and clarity around government requests for PCNA should be enhanced. National actors' motivation for requesting and/or engaging or their position on an assessment should be clear and clearly understood. This will require a clearer protocol for how national and Joint Declaration partners engage with each other at country level when PCNAs are being discussed as an option for planning for international support. • In situations where the potential for a joint assessment is identified, senior-level scoping missions to assess the political environment and outline the strategic options, in collaboration with national partners where and as feasible, should be a key first step in the process to mobilize the partnership and a joint assessment process. The mission report should be a political document and should become the key input to inform highlevel decision making in-country and at HQ. • A clear commitment to ensuring the inclusion of key stakeholders beyond the government, including the establishment of clear and specific leading positions for women and taking steps to engage with women's groups, should be embedded into decision making and planning. Models and best practices for engaging with nonstate actors should be identified for senior-level support (including, for example, a clear authorizing environment), which should be ensured to country-level leadership and teams engaging with such consultations. • Partners should proactively seek to use and support national systems and capacities to lead and manage a joint assessment process. At a minimum they should seek to engage civil servants, local experts, and local staff of the partner organizations in key positions. Fast and targeted capacity support mechanisms (for example, technical assistance, secondments, and quick training) should be designed as part of the joint assessment approach and methodology. • Where no legitimate authority is in place (or there is no authority at all) and the contested nature of groups involved in a conflict situation make consultations difficult, Joint Declaration partners could still consider evoking the partnership framework to conduct joint assessments, but it should be clear that the assessment would inform internal or cross-agency planning in view, possibly, of moving toward some nationally owned approach, if and when the situation allows. A decision to undertake a joint assessment in these contexts should be considered carefully, justified on solid grounds, and documented; a plan to progressively build in national ownership as the situation changes should still be considered. In most of these situations, however, it is likely that other types of assessment and processes will be preferred (for example, humanitarian assessments or UN Security Council-mandated operations).

Damages and loss
• Methodology needs to be adjusted accordingly and good practices identified and tested for regional assessments

Local or regional
Note: DALA = Damages and Loss Assessment.

BOx B.1 Joint PCNA Secretariat Main Responsibilities
The main responsibilities of a virtual or physical joint secretariat would include the following:

Senior level, strategic
• Provide key support to the senior-level decision-making processes, including to the PCNA Advisory Group if that is retained. • Ensure senior-level liaison with and support to country offices.

Standard secretariat functions
• Provide a one-stop-shop capacity to support communication (for example, vertical and horizontal); make available resources, tools, and knowledge and guidance on their effective dissemination within and across the Joint Declaration partners at HQ and country level and to national partners; and ensure effective lessons learning and sharing. Website management would fall under the secretariat responsibilities. • Support the identification and deployment of qualified staff throughout the assessment. • Provide practical support throughout assessment processes (for example, help organize briefings, make key documentation available, and identify best practices). • Provide all other secretarial support (for example, prepare documents, agendas for key meetings, and summary records and file and archive materials).