Researchers studied one of Liberia’s largest peacebuilding programs—the Community Empowerment Program (CEP)—for answers. The CEP was an intensive community education campaign that focused on civic education, human rights, and community collective action. Above all, the program attempted to impart knowledge and skills to foster dialogue and non-violent conflict resolution. From ...» 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.
Patterns of Conflict and Cooperation in Liberia (Part 2): Prospects for Conflict Forecasting and Early Warning
Conflict early warning remains an important but elusive goal in Liberia. If outbreaks of violence could be predicted before they occur, early responders could focus their energies and scarce resources on the highest-risk communities. Is such a goal realistic? Early warning requires a simple system for generating reliable predictions—a system that is not only accurate, but is ...» more
Reintegrating and Employing High Risk Youth in Liberia: Lessons from a randomized evaluation of a Landmine Action agricultural training program for ex-combatants
In 2003, Liberia’s 14-year civil war finally came to an end. The war was disruptive and destructive, displacing the majority of Liberia’s 3 million inhabitants, halting economic activity, deepening poverty, and depriving a generation of basic education. The bulk of Liberia’s youth remain poor and underemployed. While the security situation has steadily improved since 2003, many ...» more
Housing Reconstruction as Socio-economic Recovery and State Building: Evidence from Southern Lebanon
In the aftermath of the 2006 ‘July War’ housing reconstruction in southern Lebanon proceeded along an owner-driven model funded primarily by Middle Eastern donors. This paper addresses the previously unexamined nature of this process, including the actors involved, amounts provided and the results achieved, before examining the ways in which implementation affected economic ...» more
Gender and Macroeconomic Policy. Directions in Development
Mainstream economic analysis has traditionally overlooked gender. The individual—the basic category of analysis—was regarded as genderless. Neither gender discrimination nor segmentation and segregation within the labour market or the household were present. Contributions from development theory, new household economics (NHE), labour economics, and feminist analysis have done ...» more
Empowering the Poor through Human Rights Litigation
Following consultation with more than 200 NGOs worldwide, this manual aims to define the content of economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights and to empower the actions of NGOs working to tackle poverty. It elaborates standards for poverty eradication extracted from comparative case law by highlighting the interpretation techniques used by judges throughout a series of ...» more
Good Practices in Supporting Supreme Audit Institutions
Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) are the lead public sector audit organisation in a country. Their main task is to examine whether public funds are spent economically, efficiently and effectively in compliance with existing rules and regulations. This guide focuses on how development partners can better support SAIs. But it can also be applied when considering how to better ...» more
Removing user fees in the health sector: a review of policy processes in six sub-Saharan African countries
In recent years, governments of several low-income countries have taken decisive action by removing fully or partially user fees in the health sector. This study reviews recent reforms in six sub-Saharan African countries: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal and Uganda. The review describes the processes and strategies through which user fee removal reforms have been ...» more
Making schools work: new evidence on accountability reforms
This study looks at efforts to improve accountability in the education sector. It focuses on service delivery failures – cases where resources for education have increased but where these have not led to an improvement in outcomes. The authors argue that a key cause of low quality and unequal public services in education is weak accountability of providers to both their ...» more
Governance in the Health Sector: A Strategy for Measuring Determinants and Performance
The role of rules and institutions in influencing the behaviour of health systems is increasingly acknowledged. This paper reviews the concept of governance as it is used in the literature on private firms, public administration, international development and health. The paper argues that governance should be understood as the combination of political, social, economic and ...» more
Report of the Secretary-General on small arms
What are the negative impacts of the illicit trade in small arms on security, human rights, and socio-economic development? How can governments and international agencies stem the uncontrolled proliferation of small arms? This report of the Secretary-General for the United Nations (UN) Security Council discusses the role of small arms in contemporary conflicts, and analyses ...» more
The Other Side of Gender: Including Masculinity Concerns in Conflict and Peacebuilding
Gender analysis often fails to acknowledge that men also possess gender identities: the term gender encompasses social, cultural and economic considerations and (changing) power dynamics between and among men and women. This brief highlights that taking a more inclusive view of gender roles in conflict, and recognising that these roles are dynamic, can lead to more informed ...» more
Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice
This report explores how justice systems can be made to work for women. Where laws and justice systems work well, they can provide an essential mechanism for women to realise their human rights. However, laws and justice systems that reinforce unequal power relations must be transformed in order to fulfil the potential they hold for accelerating progress towards gender ...» more
Gender and Climate Change: Overview Report
This report argues that gender transformation is both an important condition and a potential end goal of effective climate change responses and poverty reduction. It highlights the need to put people at the centre of climate change responses, and to pay particular attention to the challenges and opportunities that climate change presents in the struggle for gender ...» more
Weathering the Storm: Adolescent Girls and Climate Change
What impact does climate change have on adolescent girls? This report argues that the double jeopardy brought about by gender and age has been largely ignored in the global debate on climate change. It highlights girls' need for: 1) greater access to quality education and skills in relation to climate change; 2) greater protection from violence exacerbated by climate shocks; ...» more
Introduction: ‘Gender and Development’ Special Issue on Social Protection
This journal issue examines how social protection has been understood and implemented by the state, NGOs, and community organisations, and the impact of different initiatives on gender equality and women's rights. It highlights the need for more women's participation in the planning of social protection interventions, and for greater focus on transformative programmes that ...» more
Women Engaging Politically: Beyond Magic Bullets and Motorways
This paper draws on over eight country case studies to analyse the possibilities and limitations of mainstream approaches, such as quotas, to strengthening women's access to political power. It finds that any quota law needs to be complemented by other interventions to ensure that it has a positive social transformative impact. Further, concepts of and support for women's ...» more
What Makes Domestic Violence Legislation More Effective?
This paper draws on lessons from Brazil's Maria da Penha legislation, passed in 2006, and from Bangladesh and Ghana. It argues that women's organising is vital not only to get laws passed, but also in monitoring their implementation and holding governments to account. The effectiveness of domestic violence legislation depends on: the monitoring of policies by civil society ...» more
Measuring the Economic Gain of Investing in Girls: The Girl Effect Dividend
This paper estimates the costs incurred by societies as a result of the social exclusion of adolescent girls. It explores the potential increases in national income that could be gained by addressing early school dropout, teenage pregnancy and joblessness. It finds that marginal investments in girls can have a substantial impact on GDP growth. The estimates provided are of the ...» more
Introduction: Gender in Transitional Justice
Literature on gender in transitional justice (TJ) has tended to focus on women as victims of sexualised violence. But this study aims to contribute to more nuanced and inclusive analysis. Gender cannot be seen simply as a descriptive category of victims. The roles of men and women in the context of TJ are multifaceted and interrelated. Incorporating gender into analysis of TJ ...» more
