Key finding: Landmark rulings by South Africa’s Constitutional Court in favour of poor people’s social and economic rights since the 1990s have drawn widespread attention to the law as a tool for realising poor people’s rights and tackling the underlying systemic problems in a way that empowers individuals and communities. But while there has been broad support for using the ...» more
Development Pressures
Conflict and Stabilisation in Mali and the Sahel Region
The report covers factors including: Islamist terrorism; criminal networks and trafficking (of arms, drugs, cigarettes, and vehicles); and Tuareg rebellions against the Malian government. It also considers state weakness, including the weakness of state security structures in the north, and the role of neighbouring countries, ECOWAS, the AU and other international actors. ...» more
‘Triggers’ to scale up assistance in advance of shocks
A growing literature advocates the use of triggers for action as part of an early warning and response system for humanitarian assistance, although there is as yet little discussion of approaches to defining such triggers. Triggers based on humanitarian need can include particular triggers for different levels of crisis. The literature also notes that both 'entry' and 'exit' ...» more
Preventing conflict between refugees and host communities
This report includes programme examples from 13 countries. It highlights three main types of programme designed to tackle tensions and conflicts between refugees and host communities:Integrated humanitarian and development programmes – these seek to balance assistance to both refugee and host communities, or integrate services provided to them. Conflict resolution programmes – ...» more
Distortionary economic impacts of aid interventions in fragile states
Key findings: There is a wide range of literature that touches on the issues of economic impacts related to humanitarian and development interventions, including analyses and evaluations on different types of projects or programmes that have had impacts on the local economy. Within this literature the area of most relevance to conflict and post-conflict environments is that ...» more
Theory of Change Approaches to Post-conflict Governance Programming
In its simplest form, Theory of Change (ToC) can be defined as, ‘the description of a sequence of events that is expected to lead to a particular desired outcome’ (Davies 2012). This research report considers the application of ToC to governance programmes in post-conflict and fragile states. It should be noted that, because of what information is available, the examples ...» more
Impact of telecommunications reform on service delivery
Telecommunications have been shown to have a range of direct, indirect and intangible benefits on development and poverty reduction goals (Bhavnani et al, 2008). Where the literature allows, the report includes examples of how telecommunications reform has enabled better service outcomes in fragile and conflict-affected states, and some of the challenges of implementation in ...» more
UN Peace Support Mission Transitions
This report provides an overview of the available analysis on UN peace support transitions. The term transitions refers to situations where peace support operations withdraw and hand over responsibility to national authorities, another UN body such as a UN country team, an alternative international presence, or other regional and local actors. The available literature is mostly ...» more
UN Peace Support Mission Transitions – Sierra Leone
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) began in 1999. At its height in 2001 it consisted of some 17,500 personnel. The mission had a strong influence on how the integrated mission concept is understood and applied today, particularly with regard to integrating humanitarian politico-military efforts and the UN system in the country, operating under the ...» more
Urbanisation and Growth
The proportion of a country’s population living in urban areas is highly correlated with its level of income. The correlation between urbanisation and economic growth in developing countries can be explained largely by the fact that economic development involves the transformation of a country from an agricultural economy to an industrial-service economy. Production of ...» more
Police reform evaluations
Police reform often comes under the remit of broader security sector reform (SSR). The two are increasingly promoted in post-conflict, transitional and fragile states as a means of providing a stable environment within which wider social, economic and political development can take place. Despite this, however, researchers and practitioners argue that there is very little ...» more
Peacebuilding support in West Africa
This report identifies the major government and donor programmes that aim to contribute to peacebuilding in four West African nations – Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. It begins by providing an overview of major partnerships and programmes, particularly those that are present in two or more of the countries. The main types of partnerships for peacebuilding in ...» more
Alternative livelihoods
The literature on ‘alternative livelihoods’ focuses primarily on efforts related to countering illicit drug crop cultivation. Links between illicit drug crop cultivation and armed conflict are noted in various contexts. Efforts to counter illicit drug crop cultivation are thus considered important to stability and security. The ‘alternative livelihoods’ approach is a ...» more
Donors’ and agencies’ humanitarian protection frameworks
This report provides information on the strategy documents that frame different donors’ and humanitarian agencies’ approaches to protection, and highlights the key focus of each document. Many definitions of humanitarian protection exist, with many donors supporting, and agencies undertaking, protection activities. These are mostly in situations of conflict, or as a result of ...» more
The impact of Area-Based Programming
Area-Based Development (ABD) approaches use the geographic ‘area’ as the main entry point for intervention, rather than a sector or target group. Area-based programming is widely used in conflict-affected parts of Europe, the Middle East, South and Central Asia. ABD has been less commonly used in Africa, and where it has been applied, the programmes tend not to be as ...» more
Conflict dynamics in West Africa
Of the 16 countries that make up the West African sub-region , four have had large scale civil conflict and at least seven have experienced significant low-scale conflicts within the last 25 years, a consequence of multiple interrelated factors. These include: political system failures social exclusion persistent poverty and low levels of economic development poor ...» more
Multi-Year Funding to Humanitarian Organisations in Protracted Crises
There has been growing consensus amongst donors that multi-year funding is a critical tool for improving the allocation and effectiveness of humanitarian aid to protracted crises. A number of donors have developed mechanisms to allocate funding in these contexts on a multi-year basis, channelling funding directly to NGOs, the UN and other multilateral agencies, and to ...» more
Donor Initiatives to Engage with South Sudanese Diaspora
This report provides details of donor programmes designed to engage with the South Sudanese diaspora with the goal of supporting their development efforts in the country. It also provides details of similar programmes with the Somali diaspora and diaspora from other post-conflict states in Africa. A small number of initiatives are currently being undertaken with the South ...» more
Output-based aid in water and sanitation
Output-based aid (OBA) is one of a range of results-based financing approaches which aims to improve development outcomes by linking the disbursement of aid money to achievement of specified outputs by service delivery partners. There is considerable experience with OBA in the transport sector and in Latin America, but very little experience and evidence in the water and ...» more
Urbanisation and Governance
This paper identifies the main governance issues and trends related to urbanisation. It is based on a rapid review of the available literature and inputs from several experts in the field of governance and urbanisation. There is a growing consensus that issues relating to urbanisation cannot simply be tackled by monetary or technical interventions, but that new governance ...» more
