Mali and Somalia have both suffered Islamist-inspired insurgencies, and in both African Union-led peace operations have been a central pillar in political and security stabilisation efforts. This article argues that, despite challenges in transferring lessons between unique situations, the AMISOM experience can offer some useful lessons for Mali. Factors that helped to drive ...» more
Library
This e-library contains more than 4500 external publications on governance, social development, conflict and humanitarian issues. It includes academic and grey literature selected for its basis in good quality research and coverage of a range of perspectives. Policy-oriented summaries of each document are provided, plus links to the full text.
Africa’s illiberal state-builders
This paper suggests that in Angola, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sudan there are important similarities in the projects ruling elites are pursuing. Their projects are statist and illiberal, even when engaging piecemeal with a costless mimetic liberalism. Their elites originate from narrow social bases and belong to relatively well-organised and politicised former liberation movements, ...» more
Evaluating governance indexes: Critical and less critical questions
Recent years have seen a proliferation of ‘composite indicators’ or ‘indexes’ of governance, but some are better tools than others and some are better suited to certain purposes than others. This paper provides a framework of ten questions to help users and producers of governance indexes to evaluate them and consider key components of index design. The paper argues that:more ...» more
Buying Votes vs. Supplying Public Services: Political Incentives to Under-Invest in Pro-Poor Policies
This paper uses unique survey data to provide, for the first time in the literature, direct evidence that vote buying in poor economies is associated with lower provision of public services that disproportionately benefit the poor. Various features of the data and the institutional context allow the interpretation of this correlation as the equilibrium policy consequence of ...» more
Double Dividends: Exploring how Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programmes can contribute to peacebuilding and statebuilding
The evidence base for precisely how, and to what extent, basic service delivery, and in particular water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), can contribute to peacebuilding and statebuilding (PBSB) is extremely limited. To address this lack of evidence, DFiD funded Tearfund and ODI to assess the implications of this new thinking for Tearfund’s WASH work in the Democratic Republic ...» more