Since the 2010 uprising, Tunisia was steadily showing progress in terms of adopting international human rights conventions and treaties. Albeit, challenges of instability and terrorism are ever-present and persistent despite the Tunisian government’s efforts to address the security challenges. In order to balance its security challenges and its commitment to a stable transition into democracy, it is crucial for Tunisia to move forward in security sector reform (SSR) across a set of actors, which also entails addressing the lack of civilian trust in the police forces through increased transparency and accountability in the security governance.

In response to the challenges outlined, the United States Institute of Peace’s (USIP) launched its SSR project. The project is currently in the second phase of a potential three-phase initiative and is based on three main pillars:

1. The enhancement of security sector training institutions’ pedagogical capacities.
2. The modernisation of training materials’ management and storage.
3. The institutionalisation of international best practices of curricular development and training reform.

In order to assist USIP’s efforts, Triangle was commissioned to conduct an assessment and lead on the process of evaluation for the USIP’s SSR project. To guide the process of evaluation, Triangle developed a non-exhaustive framework where particular emphasis was placed on the output of the security sector training and SSR best practice. Triangle’s methodological process for the commencement of the evaluation project is a phased adaptive approach, which is set in order to gather appropriate information and integrate feedback loops into tools development, so as to facilitate efficient analytical research. The purpose of the evaluation is capturing the outcomes of the project, understanding good practices to be reinforced, identifying areas which require further development and learn lessons to inform future similar work in Tunisia and elsewhere. The evaluation also focuses on the linkage between the various programme activities and how they impact one another.

Project Evaluation of Security Sector Reform in Tunisia

Qualitative and Quantitative Research, Capacity Building and Training Framework