Assessing the progress and impact of intercultural integration policies and programmes is an issue at the core of the Intercultural Cities programme, and a thinking in constant evolution. Monitoring and evaluation of both the tools and the local intercultural strategies are critical to achieve the intercultural vision, develop strategies and initiatives that are evidence-based, and maintain trust between residents and authorities.

Furthermore interculturalism is based on the idea that, while it is important to close the gap between newcomers and older residents in terms of level of education, employment, health, housing etc; symbolic, emotional, psychological aspects associated with living in society such as sense of belonging, of being valued across cultural difference, community cohesion, attitudes to diversity, levels of perceived discrimination, are also extremely important dimensions of integration. Therefore, attention should also be devoted to monitoring and evaluating attitudes and perceptions of diversity and wellbeing.

In this module on monitoring implementation and measuring progress we will look at the following topics:

  • Collect data
  • Identify indicators
  • Monitor progress

Monitoring implementation and measuring progress

Given the changing nature of diversity and the local context, monitoring and evaluation of intercultural practices is a complex task for cities and the Intercultural Cities community. Cities have to overcome several challenges such as the lack of available data (including disaggregated data, quantitative and qualitative), lack of or shrinking budgets, and some methodological issues (such as identifying relevant indicators or establishing causality).

Next, please read pages 54-55 of the guide The intercultural city step by step. You can also save the document if you wish to return to it later.

There are three main activities you need to undertake when assessing your progress:

The CBRA process involves the following steps:

An Intercultural Task Force, in co-operation with the Forum of Intercultural Champions, the body steering the development of the intercultural strategy, also carries out the CBRA procedures. The first step would be to provide them with information/training on the CBRA approach and convince them of its usefulness.

Selection of results: on the basis of the results of the intercultural mapping, and in broad consultation with organisations and citizens, identify diversity management goals (or re-state the goals defined by the city council if this has been done through an inclusive participatory process), define priorities and obstacles to reaching the goals. Goals identified by the process might not, in the first instance, be related to diversity, but when discussing the issue people might realise that cultural isolation or prejudice are obstacles to reaching these goals and decide to address these problems.

Establish indicators to measure the achievement of goals: indicators need to be measurable, but the measurements could be very loose, for instance how security staff in some public spaces feel that conflicts between people from different cultural backgrounds have diminished. There should not be too many goals and indicators. Strong, welcoming and diverse cities are the general goals identified. In many cases, the success of the programme will actually be its steady progress over 2-3 years.

Tips for your intercultural strategy

  • Establish data sources and data collection processes based on the indicators to support the monitoring process. Ensure that the data are both quantitative and qualitative.
  • Develop relevant indicators. An indicator is a measure that helps quantify the achievement of a result. A good indicator should be based on common sense as well as compelling (communication power), say something important about the result (i.e. not be marginal), and have data power (consistent data to measure the result). It is very important to discuss the extent to which perceptions are relevant indicators. For instance, “what does it mean for you to be a diversity-friendly community”?
  • Involve diverse actors to identify relevant indicators and review.
  • Establish the baseline data that you will be using as a starting point to measure your progress later. This data should demonstrate the efforts of people such as youth and social workers who try to make communities more cohesive and often do not see their efforts reflected in city-wide indicators.
  • Select strategies: define the actions through which results can be achieved.
  • Design financing strategies, partnerships with various institutions and organisations.
  • Develop an accountability system (design the procedure for communicating with the stakeholders, reporting, making changes to the strategy and the system etc.). Both success and lack of it should be reported, for instance at community summits, through newsletters etc.

Next, please read pages 54-57 of the guide The intercultural city step by step. You can also save the document if you wish to return to it later.

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31. Why should innovative approaches be used in data collection in the context of the intercultural cities?

  • To respond to the needs of the evaluators.
  • Innovation is needed as this is a new topic.
  • (1)To ensure the data collection reaches also hard to reach groups.

To make sure evidence collected reflect the reality, particularly of more disadvantaged groups and those whose conditions often remain hidden from the authorities and services (such as persons without documents), data collection in an intercultural context requires innovative approaches and involvement of various actors reflecting the diversity of the city.

32. Why are indicators important?

  • Indicators allow local policymakers to know which areas are important to focus on.
  • Indicators define future needs of policymaking in the field of interculturalism.
  • (1)They allow local policymakers to set and monitor targets for a better implementation of local intercultural policies.

The use of core indicators is important to allow local policymakers to set and monitor targets for a better implementation of their local intercultural policies. Cities have a number of indicators at their disposal while developing their intercultural monitoring and evaluation systems. They can either use or combine indicators developed by other cities or organisations, or co-design with local communities their own indicators.

33. What is an indicator?

  • A measure on how important a policy area is.
  • (1)A measure which helps quantify the achievement of a result.
  • A measure of the needs of the organisation.

An indicator is a measure that helps quantify the achievement of a result. A good indicator should use common sense and be compelling (communication power), say something important about the result (i.e. not be marginal), and have data power (consistent data to measure the result). It is very important to discuss the extent to which perceptions are relevant indicators. For instance, “what does it mean for you to be a diversity-friendly community”?

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