Paper short abstract:

Our paper will examine avenues to overcome common obstacles encountered in evaluation research in conflict-affected settings and describe how our remote approach to evaluation has enabled access to conflict-affected communities in Syria often rendered invisible by mainstream evaluators

Paper long abstract:

Evaluating health systems in conflict-affected settings is challenging, yet also critical to capture the consequences of violence and service disruptions on communities. The practical and ethical challenges involved in implementing research in these settings can discourage robust research efforts. While evaluation to inform rebuilding of health systems in conflict-affected settings has gained academic traction, less attention has been brought to developing conflict-sensitive and contextually-appropriate evaluation frameworks to assess systems and programmes in conflict-damaged countries. Qualitative research is particularly helpful to account for lived experiences of conflict, humanitarian response, and services delivery, and to inform health interventions.

Syria has experienced nine years of war and is divided into several fragmented areas of military-controlled governance, making it a very challenging security landscape for researchers to evaluate health system components across governance areas. Drawing on our experience assessing health system governance across the country using remote qualitative methods, our paper will (i) examine avenues to overcome common obstacles encountered in evaluation research in conflict-affected settings; (ii) describe how our remote approach to evaluation has enable access to conflict-affected communities in Syria often rendered invisible by mainstream evaluators; and (iii) propose ways to involve and engage Syrian ‘communities of experience’ and ‘communities of practice’ in health system evaluations while safeguarding research participants. Across these themes, we will reflect on our efforts to frame the logistics, ethics, and politics of remote evaluation through a decolonial lens, with a particular focus on the roles and positionalities of diaspora and international researchers involved in such evaluations.