State-society relations, citizenship and socio-political cohesion are areas of great importance to statebuilding and peacebuilding and are crucial to an integrated approach. State-society relations are defined by DFID as ‘interactions between state institutions and societal groups to negotiate how public authority is exercised and how it can be influenced by people. They are ...» more
Voice and accountability
Citizen voice and action
No democratic government can afford not to listen to the voices of its citizens. There a three reasons for this. First, it is a matter of common sense. Involving people in discussions about how to tackle a problem that affects their lives is much more likely to generate successful solutions. If opportunities are made to…» more
Mobile phone and social media interventions for youth development outcomes
Young people are often ‘first adopters’ of new technologies, particularly broadcast technologies such as mobile phones. The upsurge in ICT usage has had a direct impact on increasing civic engagement among youth, providing new avenues through which they are informed, shape opinions, organise, collaborate and take action. A number of barriers and challenges remain that must ...» more
Grievance Redress Mechanisms in Pakistan
Research for this report identified five GRM examples, though with varying levels of evaluation and assessment documentation. Many of these GRMs would not strictly be described as models but rather programmes, or sets of activities within programmes, that provide redressal of grievances. There is not a definitive list of essential components for GRMs. Consequently this ...» more
Post-2015 accountability mechanisms
Key messages: The Post-2015 Development Agenda refers to a currently ongoing process of defining the future global development framework, which will succeed the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The details and wording are yet to be agreed, but there are, however, a significant number of proposals for goals and targets, and with them descriptions, in some ...» more
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex rights in national human rights institutions
NHRIs almost unanimously take a universal human rights stance which is validated and backed up by the UN. This institutional support allows NHRIs to criticise governments for failing to support certain human rights. NHRIs often emphasise that LGBTI rights are contained within existing UN rights principles, particularly the rights to privacy, health, life, freedom from ...» more
New thinking on governance issues
There is a wide and diverse literature on political economy, public administration, public financial management, procurement, and social accountability. This literature search is neither comprehensive nor exhaustive, but instead a rapid review that looks to identify literature that provides novel approaches or insights, as well as notable literature that provides a good ...» more
Gender in community-driven development
Elite capture is a significant concern. The evidence is clear that 'uncontrolled' CDD will not necessarily benefit women, the poor and other disadvantaged groups. Women's participation is a central problem as they do not usually have the time and/or confidence to contribute to village planning processes. To reach women and other disadvantaged groups, CDD needs to have explicit ...» more
Transparency and accountability
More and better data is thought to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for increasing citizens’ access to that data. Likewise, increased access to more and better data is seen as a necessary but not sufficient condition for strengthening a government’s political accountability to its citizens. To date, however, there is limited understanding of exactly how, where and ...» more
State fragility and social cohesion
This report reviews the relationship between social cohesion and state fragility – focusing on literature from 2010 onwards. There is no clear empirical understanding in the literature of how social cohesion contributes to state resilience or fragility, as it is very difficult to measure, and to assess independently other variables that impact on state fragility. Key points ...» more
Democratic governance initiatives – policy advocacy
It appears that there are many descriptive case studies of civil society advocacy campaigns to strengthen democratic governance, but few publicly available evaluations of the international interventions to provide support to these campaigns and the civil society organisations (CSOs) involved. Some studies do mention links between the policy advocacy initiatives and poverty ...» more
Democratic governance initiatives civic education and media
This rapid review synthesises the findings of successful democratic governance interventions supporting civic education and a free and independent media. The choice of cases to include has been limited as not many evaluations of civic education and media initiatives are publicly available. Moreover it has been challenging to find evaluations that explore the link between these ...» more
Addressing high rates of public service absenteeism
Absenteeism affects a number of different sectors, but literature on public service absenteeism focuses predominantly on health and education. Notably, in recently published literature, there are a number of studies using randomised control trials to test interventions designed to address absenteeism. This helpdesk research report identifies and synthesises the findings of key ...» more
Budget accountability and participation
Experts agree that the evidence base on budget transparency, accountability and participation is limited and underdeveloped. However there are a growing number of case studies and meta-analyses covering a wide geographic scope and diverse contexts, with a variety of methods and gender sensitivity. Key findings from the evidence include the following: There are examples ...» more
Tools for participatory analysis of poverty, social exclusion and vulnerability
Among the tools reviewed are: Ranking: Commonly divided into three approaches: problem ranking, preference ranking, and wealth ranking, which enable practitioners to gain an understanding of local perceptions and preferences on a range of issues, including poverty. Seasonal Calendars: Visual tools which can be useful for identifying periods of stress and vulnerability ...» more
Interventions to increase levels of trust in society
Key findings It is possible to discern that interventions concerned with transforming state-society relations necessarily involve or require raising trust levels within society and/or between state-society. However, only a few of these interventions present trust-building as a central or explicit objective. In contrast, descriptions of trust deficits in fragile states abound ...» more
Multi-donor support mechanisms for civil society
The experience of multi-donor support mechanisms for CSOs is mixed. There are a number of potential advantages for donors engaging in pooled funding strategies, including working with donors who have a stronger presence and a track record in a particular context, and reducing transaction costs in the medium- to long- term. However, experts indicate that the difficulties of ...» more
Participatory methods for community consultation
This annotated bibliography identifies literature about specific participatory methods and tools for community consultation. Key findings Some donors have used particular participatory methodologies to inform country level strategy – such as Participatory Poverty Assessments by the World Bank and a donor staff immersion approach by the Swiss Agency for Development and ...» more
Safe spaces for girls: six-country mapping
This review presents a broad overview of the most prominent and well-evidenced programmes providing safe spaces for girls in six selected countries. Key findings The criteria for defining a ‘safe space’ followed the Population Council’s guidance, and the following programmes all contain these elements: A physical space where adolescent girls (10-19 years old) meet regularly An ...» more
The effectiveness of measuring influence
The methods for evaluating influencing programmes are not well developed, and carrying out such evaluations is considered challenging. Projects often use multiple approaches to influencing, which demand different approaches to evaluation, and strong evaluations often use multiple methodologies to triangulate their findings. While there are many publicly available evaluations, ...» more
