The Capturing the Gains (CTG) project investigated the conditions within global value chains (GVCs) under which business competitiveness and broader social prosperity come together with the aim of promoting fairer trade and decent work, as well as what role development policy interventions play in that process. This paper provides a synthesis of CTG findings from the African ...» 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.
Women in Peace and Security through United Nations Security Resolution 1325: Literature Review, Content Analysis of National Action Plans, and Implementation
This Working Paper looks at the Women, Peace and Security agenda as laid out in UNSCR 1325 and in six following Security Council Resolutions to assess progress in the past decade and a half since its adoption in 2000. An extensive desk study of the existing literature was conducted, as well as a detailed content analysis of 40 of the 42 existing 1325 National Action Plans ...» more
The ideal of gender justice and the UNSCR 1325
The paper examines why the efforts to promote gender justice by development aid have not succeeded in dealing with deeply-rooted structural injustices which prevent the realization of social justice and gender equality. The study analyses the implementation of the UNSCR 1325 ‘Women, Peace, and Security’ in Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The paper concludes that in ...» more
Re-thinking Gender in Peacebuilding
This report is based on a three-year research project on gender in peacebuilding, which involved field research in four countries (Burundi, Colombia, Nepal and Uganda), with a thematic focus on four areas of peacebuilding:access to justice (including formal, informal, traditional and transitional justice); economic recovery (especially of ex-combatants and of returnee ...» more
Impact of the Chars Livelihoods Programme on the Disaster Resilience of Chars Communities
This study attempts to measure the impact that the Chars Livelihood Programme (CLP) has had on the disaster resilience of communities. It used a mixed methods approach. Quantitative data was collected using questionnaires and then a score card was created. Key Informant Interviews were then performed to collect qualitative data to understand the findings of the survey. The ...» more
What is the evidence on the impact of research on international development? A DFID literature review
Four pathways are commonly cited to describe how research will contribute to development: (i) driving economic growth, (ii) increasing human capital, (iii) leading to the development of pro-poor products and technologies and (iv) providing evidence to inform policies and practice. This literature review examines the evidence related to each of these four pathways. It ...» more
Voice and Agency: Empowering women and girls for shared prosperity
This report delivers an array of data, studies and evidence collected from a variety of sources to shine a spotlight on the pervasive deprivations and constraints that face women and girls worldwide. It focuses on key drivers and determinants of voice and agency. It also investigates the effectiveness of interventions designed to combat violence against women and other agency ...» more
How Useful are RCTs in Evaluating Transparency & Accountability?
This paper reviews experience in the use of randomised control trials (RCTs) in evaluating transparency and accountability (T&A) initiatives, and where evidence exists, in evaluating Technology-for-Transparency-and-Accountability (T4T&A) initiatives. The review explores: (i) where and under what conditions RCTs might be the most appropriate approach; and (ii) where other ...» more
The Economic Costs of Civil War: Synthetic Counterfactual Evidence and the Effects of Ethnic Fractionalization
There is a consensus that civil wars entail enormous economic costs, but reliable estimates are lacking, due to the endogenous relationship between violence and socio-economic conditions. This paper measures the economic consequences of civil wars with the synthetic control method, identifying appropriate counterfactuals for assessing the national-level economic impact of civil ...» more
Addressing Inequality in South Asia
Inequality in South Asia appears to be moderate when looking at standard indicators such as the Gini index, which are based on consumption expenditures per capita. But other pieces of evidence reveal enormous gaps, from extravagant wealth at one end to lack of access to the most basic services at the other. Which prompts the question: How bad is inequality in South Asia? And ...» more
Youth Bulges and Youth Unemployment
This paper analyses the economics and demography of the youth bulge—how youth demography is changing and how it affects youth unemployment—using data for 154 countries. It finds that the simple relationship between youth bulges and youth unemployment across countries and within countries over time is very weak. Estimating regressions including year-fixed effects and ...» more
World Social Protection Report 2014/15: Building economic recovery, inclusive development and social justice
This ILO flagship report: (i) provides a global overview of the organisation of social protection systems, their coverage and benefits, as well as public expenditures on social security; (ii) following a life-cycle approach, presents social protection for children, for women and men of working age, and for older persons; (iii) analyses trends and recent policies, e.g. negative ...» more
Zero poverty… think again: Impact of climate change on development efforts
This paper reviews knowledge about the impacts of climate change on eight development goal areas and argues that it is essential for climate change to be addressed in order not to compromise development efforts. It argues that climate change will have wide-ranging consequences, direct and indirect, on development and poverty reduction and affect the achievability of any future ...» more
The interplay between war and human rights
Developing useful policy responses to conflict and human rights requires an understanding of conflict dynamics and conflict resolution as well as international human rights and humanitarian law. This chapter introduces key issues and concepts in the complex relationship between war and human rights, and highlights the varying ways that human rights violations and conflict they ...» more
“We need a culture of truth”: the role of civil society organisations in transitional justice
The Refugee Law Project recently held a workshop with a number of civil society organisations (CSOs) and key stakeholders to discuss transitional justice and national reconciliation in Uganda. This report sheds light on the discussions held in that event. Many of the CSOs committed to working together in the future and acknowledged the power of numbers in regards to regional ...» more
State of Civil Society Report 2014
The report draws on contributions from more than 30 experts on civil society as well as on inputs from members, partners, supporters and others in the global CIVICUS alliance. The varied contributions highlight changing global political dynamics, an emerging disillusionment with global frameworks of governance and a fundamental lack of accountability within international ...» more
Urban Poverty in Asia
This paper looks at the income and non-income dimensions of poverty in the two main regions of Asia, including a brief account of who and what class of people are affected most by poverty and deprivation. It analyses the effect of recent urbanisation and gross domestic product (GDP) growth trends—which distinguish Asia from other regions—on poverty. It does this using two sets ...» more
Dictators Walking the Mogadishu Line: How Men Become Monsters and Monsters Become Men
History offers many examples of dictators who worsened their behaviour significantly over time (like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe), while there are also cases of dictators who have displayed remarkable improvements (like Jerry Rawlings of Ghana). This study shows that such mutations can result from rational behaviour when the dictator’s flow use of repression is complementary to ...» more
Social protection for older persons: Key policy trends and statistics
This policy paper: (i) provides a global overview of the organisation of pension systems, their coverage and benefits, as well as public expenditures on social security, in 178 countries; (ii) analyses trends and recent policies, e.g. extension of coverage in a large number of low- and middle-income countries; (iii) presents the negative impacts of fiscal consolidation and ...» more
Conditional Cash Transfers, Civil Conflict and Insurgent Influence: Experimental Evidence from the Philippines
This paper presents an experimental evaluation of the effect of a large conditional cash transfer (CCT) program—the Philippines' Pantawid Pamilya—on the intensity of violence and local insurgent influence in civil conflict. In the last decade CCT programs have become one of the most popular tools for delivering development aid and a large literature documents their positive ...» more
