Improving humanitarian and development effectiveness: Our researchers at the Global United Nations Evaluation Forum

Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs researchers Professor Bina D’Costa and Thon Jool Kelei recently took part in the three-day Global Impact Evaluation Forum, co-hosted by WFP, OCHA, UNHCR and UNICEF. They were invited by UNICEF Evaluation Specialist Amber Peterman. Alongside Zeinab Adam (UNICEF Syria), Ahmareen Karim (WGP), Luc Behaghel (Paris School of Economics) and Zlata Bruckauf (UNICEF), they contributed to a session on “Safeguarding Futures: Protection from Violence and Promotion of Mental Health”. The session highlighted the valuable insights that qualitative research methodologies offer in providing the credible evidence that survivors of violence need and deserve.

Progress so far

The session formed part of the UN’s effort to join up impact evaluation and to champion “Safeguarding Futures: Protection from Violence and Promotion of Mental Health” as a priority theme. It is a topic with significant evidence gaps, and one that calls for innovative and ethical evaluation responses.

The panel convened leaders from the UN and other operational partners, distinguished academics and people with lived experience. Together they discussed the motivation, scope and current state of knowledge on protection from violence and promotion of mental health, building on existing efforts, including J-PAL’s Humanitarian Protection Initiative. Overarching themes included the gains from multi-agency cooperation on impact evaluation and bridging the divide between evidence and practice. Thon’s doctoral thesis, supervised by D’Costa, focuses on the protection of children and young people in the Global South during humanitarian emergencies and displacement.

You can listen to the interventions by Thon and Bina here.

Next steps

The conversation is ongoing, with a focus on fostering more collaboration between agencies to co-produce evidence on “what works” to promote mental health and protect against violence in fragile settings. Thon and Bina helped demonstrate the value of bringing different types of evidence and voices into the knowledge base used by program managers at scale.

More here: Global Impact Evaluation Forum 2026 | UN World Food Programme

Ongoing research on the impact of displacement and conflict on children’s lives, and on violence against women, is supported by Professor Bina D’Costa’s Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT210100759) and the Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW, CE230100004), in the Department of International Relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.