This weekly Covid-19 Conflict and Governance Evidence Summary aims to signpost DFID and other UK government departments to the latest evidence and opinions on Covid-19, to inform and support their responses. This week, many of the key themes that emerged at the start of the Covid-19 continue to be discussed, including: allegations of corruption related…» more
Aid and non-state armed groups
This rapid literature review collates lessons related to aid (conditionality) and non-state armed groups (NSAGs). This is a companion paper to Herbert (2019)1 which looks more broadly at lessons from the use of aid conditionality in peace processes, that paper includes greater detail on what conditionality is. While the question posed sought to find information on where ...» more
Lessons from the use of aid conditionality in peace processes
This rapid literature review collates lessons from the literature on peace conditionality. This is a companion paper to Herbert (2019)1 which looks more specifically at lessons related to aid (conditionality) and non-state armed groups (NSAGs). While there is literature on peace conditionality more generally – e.g. being used for a range of purposes, and at different ...» more
Lessons from stabilisation, statebuilding, and development programming in South Sudan
This rapid literature review collates lessons from major evaluations and learning reviews from development, state-building and stabilisation programming in South Sudan since independence in 2011. Key findings include: Donors in South Sudan have had to transition from humanitarian to development aid and back and forth a number of times as conflict has broken out. Donors ...» more
Development Characteristics of Small Island Developing States
This rapid literature review explores whether there are specific characteristics of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), or a subgroup of SIDS, which mean that income alone is an inaccurate measure of development. The SIDS classification is a technical and political term used to identify those countries that are considered to face specific and increasing challenges due to ...» more
Automation of government processes
This rapid literature review examines the impact of, and lessons from, automating government processes in middle-income countries (MICs) and fragile and conflict affected environments (FCAEs). ...» more
Lessons from environmental peacebuilding programming
This rapid literature review collates lessons from conflict resolution/peacebuilding programmes that include land, resource management, and/or environmental issues. This is a burgeoning area of research which draws on a number of interrelated concepts such as environmental peacebuilding, resilience building, and bottom-up peacebuilding. Ide and Scheffran (in Ide, 2017, p.545) ...» more
Infrastructure Project Failures in Colombia
Due to poor civil engineering practices, corruption, natural disasters, the sabotage of infrastructure associated with Colombia’s armed conflict, and the politicisation of large infrastructure projects, Colombia is spending a significant amount annually on improving and rebuilding relatively new infrastructure. As the country’s population and economy continue to grow, so do its ...» more
The future of work for women in the Indo-Pacific region
The ‘future of work’ is a policy concept that explores how various technological, socio-economic, geopolitical, demographic, cultural, and environmental megatrends are developing and interacting to create new types of jobs, industries, labour conditions, and business models. It is not well-defined or critiqued as a definition, and there is no standard approach to what concepts ...» more
Who are the Elite Groups in Iraq and How do they Exercise Power
The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq transformed Iraq’s political settlement by ejecting the previous elites from power and by initiating state-building processes with previously marginalised elites and different governance principles. Iraq’s current day elites and institutions are the inheritors of that process. This review summarises the post-2003 processes that structure the ...» more
Refugees in Uganda: (in)stability, conflict, and resilience
This paper analyses the structural challenges, root causes and dynamics of conflict, (in)stability and resilience in Uganda, with a particular focus on their relation to recent refugee movements. The first section of the paper explores the national dynamics that shape conflict, (in)stability and resilience in Uganda. The second section analyses the refugee flows, policies, ...» more
Digital Development and the Digital Gender Gap
This rapid literature review collates findings from recently published papers on digital development and gender, highlighting some of the most commonly discussed discussions related to economic, social and political development. As the scope of this query is very large, this review provides an illustration of some of the commonly identified issues in the literature. The digital ...» more
Digital development and the digital gender gap
This rapid literature review collates findings from recently published papers on digital development and gender, highlighting some of the most commonly discussed discussions related to economic, social and political development. As the scope of this query is very large, this review provides an illustration of some of the commonly identified issues in the literature. The digital ...» more
Digital inclusion – recent trends and messages
This annotated bibliography collates extracts from recently published flagship policy reports on digital inclusion in international development, highlighting the key messages, trends and issues. The digital inclusion agenda seeks to close the gaps in access to, and adoption of, fast evolving information and communication technology (ICTs) services, particularly mobile phones ...» more
Conflict analysis
Conflict analysis is a structured process of analysis to understand conflict. It focuses on the conflict profile (its history), the actors involved and their perspectives, the causes of conflict, and the dynamics of how these elements interact. This Topic Guide looks at how conflict analysis is done – at the systematic approaches and tools for conflict analysis developed for ...» more
Restricting space for civil society
There is consensus in the literature reviewed for this rapid query that the space for civil society to act has been increasingly restricted in the past decade. This is a global phenomenon – occurring in different ways and not in all countries – but in all regions of the world. It is occurring in all regime types – not just authoritarian countries. However, at the same time, in ...» more
Influencing laws and guidelines on humanitarian assistance
International humanitarian law (IHL) and international disaster response laws, rules and principles (IDRL) set out rules and guidance on how to access affected populations, and how to deliver humanitarian assistance, during armed conflicts and disasters. This includes guidance on customs clearance and the taxation of relief, among other areas. IDRL is a fragmented collection of ...» more
Improving access to justice through information and communication technologies
Legal empowerment aims to enable citizens to actively use the law and shape it to their needs. Examples of awareness-raising and legal education initiatives using ICTs include: using television and radio talk shows to build links between the formal and informal justice systems; broadcasting documentaries on local television stations to promote gender equality; etc. Many ...» more
Policy approaches and lessons from working with non-state actors in security and justice
DFID has a rule of law policy approach. Programming decisions are made by a context-based, problem solving approach and therefore the policy does not identify overarching actors or themes for engagement. Is one of few donors to have published a briefing (DFID, 2004) entirely focussed on engaging with non-state security and justice actors. Engaging with non-state actors is also ...» more
Donor policy approaches to security and justice
This rapid policy mapping gives an overview of security and justice policies from the following donors and development agencies: DFID; European Commission; USAID; AFD; SIDA; World Bank; BMZ; and JICA. In terms of the differences and similarities to DFID’s approach, it finds that DFID is one of the only donors that conceptualises security and justice as a joint policy area, ...» more
