In most federal systems, municipalities are integrated into the state governments. Yet Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Switzerland have adopted a three-tier federal structure in which exclusive legislative powers are granted to local government, below state and provincial government. While decentralisation has the potential to improve accountability and give greater ...» more
The impact of mines and explosive remnants of war on gender groups
Global and country-specific gender-disaggregated data on casualties is made available through the annual Landmine Monitor produced by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines – Cluster Munition Coalition (ICBL-CMC). However, there appears to be little in the way of granular analysis and research to interrogate the underlying reasons behind yearly fluctuations in casualty ...» more
Branding and communication of development assistance
In recent years, international donors and non-governmental organisations have placed increasing emphasis on prominently branding the development interventions that they fund. Spreading knowledge about the identity of an aid project sponsor is one mechanism by which donor governments conduct local level diplomacy with direct beneficiaries and through which they hope to influence ...» more
Dominant party systems and development programming
There is a lack of applied thinking or rigorous empirical investigation into how donors and the international community can work with dominant party systems to promote more responsive state-society relations, or other forms of development progress. Frequently cited examples of existing research are not based on recent, systematic comparative research and focus mainly on ...» more
Decentralisation and cash transfer programmes
In many countries, national governments have delegated the implementation of public programmes, including cash transfers (CTs), to lower levels of the political administration. This rapid literature review found very little research or empirical evidence on the relationship between federal and provincial government in regard to cash transfer programmes. Much scholarship has ...» more
Social assistance and idiosyncratic shocks
While there is a growing literature documenting and analysing how social assistance programmes can help in reducing income poverty and food insecurity, very little systematic empirical research has been done concerning their effectiveness in reducing individual and household vulnerability to idiosyncratic shocks. This rapid review focuses on cash transfers and public works ...» more
Addressing case delays caused by multiple adjournments
A number of policy studies recommend measures to tackle case delays in developing countries, but relatively few of these recommendations are supported by rigorous empirical evidence. It also appears that data on court performance in developing countries is scarce. The exception to this is a series of World Bank studies, which measures the effectiveness of its justice reform ...» more
Political dynamics and the effectiveness of aid programmes
There is an increasing recognition amongst development scholars and practitioners that the obstacles to effective change in developing countries are not only related to technical or financial issues, but are also bound up with domestic politics and power relationships (DfID 2010a; DfID 2010b; Di John and Putzel, 2009; Leftwich: 2011; Parks and Cole, 2010; DFID 2016). As a ...» more
