The International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) is a comprehensive household questionnaire on men’s attitudes and practices – along with women’s opinions and reports of men’s practices – on a wide variety of topics related to gender equality. From 2009 to 2010, household surveys were administered to more than 8,000 men and 3,500 women ages 18-59 in Brazil, Chile, ...» 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.
Because I am a Girl: The State of the World’s Girls 2011 – So, what about boys?
This report explores why gender equality is an important issue for men and boys as well as women and girls. It demonstrates how men and boys can and should contribute to creating a more equal society. It presents clear evidence that: gender equality is good for boys, too; fathers who care promote their own happiness and that of their sons and daughters; and education at all ...» more
What is the evidence of the impact of microfinance on the well-being of poor people?
This review revisits the evidence of microfinance evaluations focusing on the technical challenges of conducting rigorous microfinance impact evaluations. This study assesses the validity of available evaluations by focusing on the intervention, the measurement of outcomes and contextual factors likely to affect differences in outcomes in different contexts. In addition, it ...» more
NGOs and Nonstate Armed Actors: Improving Compliance with International Norms
This report analyses the approaches of civil society organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Geneva Call in communicating international norms to non-state armed actors. It elaborates on the different methods as well as the basic conditions and factors that affect the success of their approaches in order to evaluate the strengths and limits ...» more
Progress of the World’s Women 2011-2012: In Pursuit of Justice
This report demonstrates that where laws and justice systems work well, they can provide an essential mechanism for women to realise their human rights. However, it also underscores the fact that, despite widespread guarantees of equality, the reality for many millions of women is that justice remains out of reach. The report highlights the practical barriers that women face ...» more
Strategic Planning Recommendations Paper
Over the past decade, development planners have become more aware of the requirement to acknowledge and incorporate peacebuilding (PB) and statebuilding (SB) into strategic planning in fragile contexts. Significant incremental progress has been made in tuning the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) model to better address PB and SB challenges. New instruments have also been ...» more
The Road to the New Deal
This report is a collection of working papers which were produced for the IDPS to help foster discussion at the four Working Groups that met between November 2010 and May 2011. The recommendations produced from these working papers and the discussions during the Working Groups meetings were used to produce the new Deal for Engagement in Fragile States, the ground-breaking ...» more
Working Effectively in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States: DRC and Rwanda – International Development Committee
The Department for International Development (DFID) is increasing its focus on fragile and conflict-affected states and the UK will spend 30% its Official Development Assistance (ODA)—approximately £3,414 million—in these states by 2015. Given the scale of funding for fragile states, the International Development Committee undertook a number of inquiries into this ...» more
Strategic Planning in Fragile and Conflict Contexts
This paper explores the tensions and trade-offs incurred throughout the strategic planning process in fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCAS) on a range of engagement principles, including national ownership, prioritisation and sequencing. It mainly uses a technical and methodological approach. It aims to provide a broad concept of key elements of planning and identify ...» more
Does Cash for School Influence Young Women’s Behavior in the Longer Term? Evidence from Pakistan
An early evaluation of the Punjab Female School Stipend Program, a conditional cash transfer, shows that the enrolment of eligible girls in middle-school increased in the short term by nearly 9 percentage points. This paper uses regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference analyses to show that five years into the programme implementation positive impacts do persist. ...» more
Time to Kill: The Impact of Election Timing on Post-Conflict Stability
This paper conducts a quantitative analysis of all civil wars ending in the post-World War II period to examine the impact of election timing on post-conflict stability. The paper argues that holding elections soon after a civil war ends generally increases the likelihood of renewed fighting, but that favourable conditions, including decisive victories, demobilisation, ...» more
The Dictators’ Digital Dilemma: When Do States Disconnect Their Digital Networks?
When and why do states disconnect their digital networks is the principle question examined in this paper. To answer this question, the authors built an event history database of 606 unique incidents involving 99 countries (1995-2011) in which a regime went beyond surveillance of particular websites or users, and disconnected Internet exchange points or blocked significant ...» more
Supporting Pathways of Women’s Empowerment: A Brief Guide for International Development Organisations
This brief informs the debate on what empowerment means and how best to support it, with empirical evidence from a five-year international research programme. Researchers from West Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the UK used quantitative surveys, ethnographic fieldwork, participatory action research, life-histories, storytelling and film-making to ...» more
Social accountability in situations of conflict and fragility
Top-down anticorruption approaches have often failed and different approaches are needed to improve state accountability to its people. Donor support to social accountability in fragile and conflict-affected states is a relatively new phenomenon drawing from the lessons learnt from top-down approaches.This paper identifies areas donors efforts should focus on in fragile and ...» more
The political economy of community scorecards in Malawi
This research seeks to contribute to the evidence base on citizen-driven accountability measures, such as community scorecards, using political economy methods to understand how community scorecards have worked in Malawi and what some of the wider lessons might be.The research finds that the scorecards programme is realising changes in service delivery in a number of ways. In ...» more
Empowerment: A journey not a destination
This report investigates what works to support women’s empowerment. It is organised around 12 key messages emerging from the diversity of studies and interventions supported by the Pathways programme. These messages emerged from an iterative and innovative synthesis process. The synthesis process involved the analysis of around 460 outputs, derived from 55 projects in 15 ...» more
Intervention hangovers in stabilisation operations. Case studies from Afghanistan and Iraq
This paper argues that the emergence of stabilisation as a concept out of peace-building, state-building and counter-insurgency theories has carried with it some of the key weaknesses of international intervention, in particular the idea that imposing western liberal systems on non-western societies will contribute towards stability. With reference to two case studies, the ...» more
Applying conflict sensitivity in emergency response: Current practice and ways forward
Using an analysis of existing agency tools and standards and case studies of three recent emergencies, as well as extensive consultations with humanitarian professionals in headquarters and field offices, this paper explores whether and how conflict-sensitive approaches (CSA) are currently being applied, explicitly or implicitly, in rapid-onset emergencies. It maps the current ...» more
Conflict Sensitivity Assessment: International Assistance in Gaza: Aiding Fragmentation or Unity? – A view from inside Gaza
This report aims to contribute a better understanding of the characteristics and dynamics of Gaza’s internal lines of tensions, as well as the patterns of interactions between international assistance and the conflict context on the ground. The bulk of information gathered for this report was collected through personal interviews and focus group discussions in Gaza, including ...» more
Managing Risks in Fragile and Transitional Contexts: The Price of Success?
This report investigates the question ‘Should aid providers be more willing to take risks when working in fragile states?’ The study considers the evidence for this idea and related propositions. Based on an analysis of donor policy, it makes recommendations for change in approaches to risk that might lead to greater aid effectiveness in these environments. The study reviews ...» more
