This study reviews the current state of integration of environmental considerations in humanitarian action. It suggests how the environment should be consistently taken into account at all phases of humanitarian programming, leading to improved effectiveness, accountability and sustainability of humanitarian action. Over 100 people were consulted as part of this study, ...» 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.
A Dynamic Mapping of the Political Settlement in Ghana
Ghana displays a number of features of democratic institutionalisation and is considered a success story of democratic transformation in Africa. This paper examines the quality of Ghana’s political transformation and the nature of its institutions. It seeks to identify the driving power relations and ‘ideas’ which are shaping Ghana’s political and economic development. This ...» more
Making Disaster Risk Management Inclusive
This briefing presents lessons from the inclusive community Resilience for sustainable Disaster Risk Management project (incRisD) in South Asia and partner programmes. It highlights the need to: 1) understand the root causes of exclusion in disaster contexts, define excluded groups, and involve them meaningfully in reducing their disaster risks; 2) create a conducive policy ...» more
Humanitarian crises, emergency preparedness and response: the role of business and the private sector – a strategy and options analysis of Haiti
This paper analyses the role of the private sector in humanitarian action in Haiti, with a particular focus on the response to the devastating earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince in 2010. During the response, international and Haitian businesses participated in humanitarian efforts – both directly assisting populations and working with aid agencies – for commercial and ...» more
Humanitarian crises, emergency preparedness and response: the role of business and the private sector: Kenya case study
Kenya was selected as a case study for this project on the role of the private sector in humanitarian response because it has a vibrant and innovative private sector, a history of severe and repeated humanitarian crises and a track record of public–private partnerships for humanitarian action. The study found a wide range of such partnerships and contractual relationships. ...» more
Insurgents in Motion: Counterinsurgency and Insurgency Relocation in Iraq
Recent studies in general are positive regarding the effectiveness of US counterinsurgency programs in Iraq. The right mix of coercion, ethnic strategy, and public goods provision, it is argued, makes Iraqis less likely to rebel against the US army and the Iraqi government, thus reducing insurgent violence. In fact, the number of insurgent attacks dramatically declined shortly ...» more
Measuring and Decomposing Inequality among the Multidimensionally Poor Using Ordinal Data: A Counting Approach
Poverty has many dimensions, which, in practice, are often binary or ordinal in nature. A number of multidimensional measures of poverty have recently been proposed that respect this ordinal nature. These measures agree that the consideration of inequality across the poor is important, which is typically captured by adjusting the poverty measure to be sensitive to inequality. ...» more
Transitional Justice and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The failure to realize economic, social and cultural rights as well as violations of these rights can be—and usually are—part of the root causes of conflict. Furthermore, the actions and omissions by States and non-state actors during conflict can also amount to violations of economic, social and cultural rights, and often have a particular impact on the most vulnerable. Yet, ...» more
War and the Destruction of Human Capital
The identification of the effect of wars on human capital tends to focus on the population of school age children at the time of the conflict. This paper introduces a methodology to estimate the effect of war on the stock of human capital by examining the changes in the presence of educated people after the Rwanda genocide. It finds that the genocide reduced the stock of human ...» more
Conflict and the Formation of Political Beliefs in Africa
This study tests whether living through conflict in childhood changes political beliefs and engagement. It combines data on the location and intensity of conflicts since 1945 with nationally representative data on political attitudes and behaviours from 17 sub-Saharan African countries. Exposure from ages 0 to 14 has a very small standardized impact on later attitudes and ...» more
Promoting Democracy: What Role for the Democratic Emerging Powers?
This article examines the role of the democratic emerging powers - India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and Turkey - in promoting democracy beyond their own borders. It argues that while these countries have potential advantages compared to western democracy promoters, namely, their own experiences in transitioning from authoritarian to democratic rule and their greater ...» more
Real Innovation or Second-Best Solution? First experiences from results-based aid for fiscal decentralisation in Ghana and Tanzania
This paper systematically records first experiences with results-based aid (RBA) for fiscal decentralisation in Ghana and Tanzania. Results-based aid is an innovative aid modality that links funding to the achievement of pre-agreed results, based on a contract between the donor and the recipient country. The study finds that the modality holds great potential in incentivising ...» more
The technical is political: understanding the political implications of sector characteristics for the delivery of drinking water services
This brief aims to help bridge the gap between governance and sector specialists by examining the politics and governance of water supply through a technical, ‘sector characteristics’ lens. The characteristics of sectors have largely been considered technicalities, but new research is illustrating that they also have political implications.The study focuses on drinking water ...» more
The Median Is the Message: A Good-Enough Measure of Material Well-Being and Shared Development Progress
This paper argues that survey-based median household consumption expenditure (or income) per capita should be incorporated into standard development indicators, as a simple, robust, and durable indicator of typical individual material well-being in a country. Using household survey data available for low- and middle-income countries from the World Bank’s PovcalNet tool, the ...» more
Stunted Growth: Why Don’t African Firms Create More Jobs?
Many countries in Africa suffer high rates of underemployment or low rates of productive employment; many also anticipate large numbers of people to enter the workforce in the near future. This paper asks the question: Are African firms creating fewer jobs than those located in other parts of the world? And, if so, why? One reason may be that weak business environments slow ...» more
Africa rising? Inequalities and the essential role of fair taxation
After a decade of high growth, a new narrative of optimism has taken hold about Africa and its economic prospects. Alongside buoyant growth rates, there has been some poverty reduction and some positive progress in sectors such as health and education. However, despite this, there is a broad consensus that progress in human development has been limited given the volume of ...» more
Attitudes towards female genital mutilation: An integrative review
The objective of this study was to describe the attitudes towards the practice of female genital mutilation in relation to different health systems and the factors that favour its discontinuation. It employed an integrative review, consisting of publications from the period 2006 to 2013. 16 studies were selected, focusing on diverse contexts that assessed the attitudes of both ...» more
A tradition in transition: factors perpetuating and hindering the continuance of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) summarized in a systematic review
Understanding the forces underpinning female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is a necessary first step to prevent the continuation of a practice that is associated with health complications and human rights violations. To this end, a systematic review of 21 studies was conducted. Based on this review, the authors reveal six key factors that underpin FGM/C: cultural ...» more
Politics, informality and clientelism – exploring a pro-poor urban politics
This paper explores what has been learnt about how to instigate, negotiate or otherwise secure pro-poor government in towns and cities of the global South. With competition for scarce resources, the processes of urban development, and specifically the acquisition of land and basic services, are intensely political. While the nature of urban poverty differs, there is a ...» more
Rethinking spatial inequalities in development: The primacy of politics and power relations
This paper offers a political explanation to the problem of spatial inequality in developing countries, paying particular attention to the implications of patronage politics and inter-elite power relations for the spatial distribution of public goods. It argues that prospects for overcoming spatial inequalities in the clientelist-driven political environments of developing ...» more
