Opening remarks by Cedric de Coning

Cedric de Coning is Head of Peace Operations and Peacebuilding at NUPI and Peacekeeping & Peacebuilding Advisor at ACCORD. He was moderator for the seminar on Lessons from UN Support of Conflict Affected Countries in the Context of UN Peace Operations organized by Norad Evaluation Department in cooperation with Evaluation Office of UNDP. The seminar provided an opportunity to discuss and learn from the findings in different evaluations of peacebuilding in conflict affected countries, including challenges associated with this type of evaluations, changes that the evaluations have instigated, and to identify common challenges for UN activities in conflict affected countries. This was a unique occasion for managers and evaluators across key UN organizations present in conflict affected countries, and Norad/ the Norwegian MFA, to meet and share experiences from their work in conflict.