Gender and age can have a big influence on people’s roles in relation to violent extremism: if they are vulnerable to recruitment, if they join violent extremist groups, the driving factors, what their participation in violent extremism entails, and – critically – what approaches should be taken to preventing or countering violent extremism (P/CVE). Hence, it is important not ...» more
Conflict analysis
Automation of government processes
This rapid literature review examines the impact of, and lessons from, automating government processes in middle-income countries (MICs) and fragile and conflict affected environments (FCAEs). ...» more
Conflict analysis of The Philippines
This rapid literature review examines the main conflict and instability drivers in the Philippines ...» more
Community cohesion projects to prevent violent extremism
This review looks at the use of community cohesion projects to prevent or counter violent extremism (P/CVE). It finds that such initiatives can be helpful in conflict-affected societies, but there are limited evaluations in the literature, and these generally do not make a direct causal link between interventions to promote social (community) cohesion and P/CVE. The retreat of ...» more
Current Trends in Violent Conflict
This rapid literature review presents the key literature that discusses current trends in violent conflict. The focus is upon recent ideas that are prevalent in literature from post-2015. The literature review draws on both academic and grey literature. The review includes both quantitative analyses of conflict data sets (Szayna et al, 2017a; 2017b; Watts, 2017) and qualitative ...» more
Livestock and Conflict in South Sudan
Livestock are critically important in South Sudanese society1 and this is reflected in the role livestock play in the country’s conflict, both serving as drivers of conflict and being negatively impacted by the conflict, with the two often reinforcing each other in a vicious cycle. This review drew largely on a mixture of academic and grey literature to assess the ...» more
Youth vulnerability to violent extremist groups in the Indo-Pacific
This review of factors driving youth vulnerability to recruitment by violent extremist groups in the Indo-Pacific highlights the variety of factors involved, and the importance of looking at each situation individually. It is impossible to generalize: youth recruitment is context-specific. In Bangladesh the political situation has created space for violent groups, with youth ...» more
Conflict, instability and resilience in Nigeria
This paper analyses the structural challenges, root causes and dynamics of conflict, instability and resilience in Nigeria. The first half of the paper explores the overall socio-economic, socio-cultural, political and environmental factors that shape conflict, instability and resilience in Nigeria. The second half of the paper explores the specific regionalised conflicts in ...» more
Drivers of conflict in Tunisia: An annotated bibliography
Tunisia has witnessed an increase in conflict activity in recent years, both in the form of violent political protest and acts of violence perpetrated by armed jihadist groups. This report identifies some of the key literature on drivers of conflict in Tunisia, looking at both short-term and structural factors. The literature included in this report identifies the following ...» more
Violent extremism and terrorism in Yemen
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) first gained control of territory in 2011 when it took advantage of political chaos; it once again managed to take control of territory following the current civil war, which began in early 2015. AQAP’s aim is to create a number of smaller emirates, which will eventually link to form a caliphate when they deem the time is right. AQAP ...» more
Conflict analysis
Conflict analysis is a structured process of analysis to understand conflict. It focuses on the conflict profile (its history), the actors involved and their perspectives, the causes of conflict, and the dynamics of how these elements interact. This Topic Guide looks at how conflict analysis is done – at the systematic approaches and tools for conflict analysis developed for ...» more
Women and countering violent extremism
The experience of various women and CVE programmes confirms that women can and do play a significant role in P/CVE - but they need to be supported and empowered to do so. Key lessons emerging from experience to date include the following: Need for gender mainstreaming: It is important to consult women and involve them in programme design and implementation, carry out ...» more
Conflict and gender dynamics in Yemen
The current conflict in Yemen, which began in 2015, has resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe. As of March 2017, 18.8 million people are in need of humanitarian support, and 10.3 million are in acute need (Sikurajapathy and Al-Fotih, 2017). Women, men, boys and girls have been affected in different ways by the conflict. This rapid reviews looks at the impact of the conflict ...» more
Countering violent extremism
This Topic Guide introduces conceptual and practical approaches to violent extremism in different contexts, setting out what we know from the literature (English and Arabic). ...» more
Economic drivers of conflict in the Western Balkans
This report looks at each of the six Western Balkans countries listed above, identifies the key economic challenges they face and assesses whether any of these are, or have the potential to become, drivers of conflict. The literature reviewed largely comprised reports from international development/finance organisations, notably the World Bank, IMF and European Commission, as ...» more
Sinai conflict analysis
The Sinai conflict has been underway since 2011 and has become progressively more intense and violent, fuelled by localised grievances as well as wider regional developments. The key actors involved are militant jihadist groups, local Bedouin tribes and the Egyptian government/military; others such as Israel, Gaza and the Multinational Forces and Observers have varying ...» more
Conflict analysis of Egypt
In 2011 Egypt experienced mass protests culminating in the fall of long serving president, Hosni Mubarak. The time in power of the country’s first democratically elected President, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, was short-lived. He was deposed by Egypt’s military on 3 July 2013, following anti-government demonstrations. Abdul Fatah el-Sisi, former head of the armed ...» more
Cross-border conflict drivers and breaks – Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq
This report provides an overview of the evidence on cross-border conflict drivers and breaks along the Pakistan–Afghanistan–Iran–Iraq route. Direct evidence on the nature of conflict-related flows along this route in its entirety is limited. Therefore, this report includes evidence on crossborder conflict dynamics between neighbouring countries along the route. This report was ...» more
Gender and conflict in Ukraine
The conflicts in eastern and southern Ukraine constitute a significant humanitarian crisis for the country and the region, with at least 1.7 million internally displaced persons, two-thirds of whom are women (UNOCHA 2016, p. 7; UNHCR 2015, p. 5) and approximately 1.5 million people seeking asylum or other forms of legal stay in neighbouring countries (UNHCR 2016, p. 7). Women ...» more
Cross-border drivers of conflict across Sudan, Egypt, and Jordan
Conflict drivers/breaks often affect multiple countries simultaneously. Moreover, conflict drivers such as violent extremism; migration; and goods trafficking are often interlinked (Browne, 2013, p. 1). Migration and trafficking often follow the same geographical routes through multiple countries, and can also involve weapons smuggling for extremist groups. Moreover, ...» more
