Community policing is the idea of policing in partnership with community, and the strategy for implementing this partnership. Beyond this rudimentary definition, there is no common agreement on what community policing entails. Experience of various forms of community policing in different fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS) have had mixed results – there have been some ...» more
Donor support of African parliaments
Parliamentary strengthening can be focused on MPs, parliament or other aspects of the political system. One way of looking at the activities undertaken is to divide them into direct support or indirect support. Indirect support is the support of specific policy issues, such as health and education, which subsequently strengthens the parliamentary process. Direct support is work ...» more
Disaster risk governance at national and sub-national levels
Though the term disaster risk governance is rarely used, there is a large body of literature that relates to the governance of disaster risk in low- and middle-income countries with a focus on national or sub-national levels. This brief helpdesk research report identifies some of the most notable literature in this area and attempts to identify common conclusions. ‘Disaster ...» more
Addressing high rates of public service absenteeism
Absenteeism affects a number of different sectors, but literature on public service absenteeism focuses predominantly on health and education. Notably, in recently published literature, there are a number of studies using randomised control trials to test interventions designed to address absenteeism. This helpdesk research report identifies and synthesises the findings of key ...» more
Political economy analysis for economic and private sector reforms
It is inherently difficult to identify how widely political economy analysis (PEA) is used to support economic and private sector (EPS) programming for a number of reasons. PEA is one of a number of factors that can influence programming and implementation and it is difficult to state categorically that a PEA had a definitive impact on reforms. It is also likely that there are ...» more
Assessing seismic risk in Kenya
This report identifies literature that assesses seismic risk in Kenya. In this report seismic risk, as a concept, is understood to be the product of seismic hazard (the probability of harmful seismic phenomena) and seismic vulnerability (the degree of loss from seismic phenomena). In terms of overall seismic risk, the presence of part of the East African Rift (which runs ...» more
Measuring the impact of PFM reforms on service delivery
Key findings At present there are no reliable, accurate tools that isolate and assess the impact of Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms on service delivery performance. This is due to the complex and indirect relationship between PFM systems and service delivery. A number of factors intervene in the relationship including local incentives and funding channelled outside of ...» more
New thinking on technical assistance to resolve knowledge and capacity gaps
There is a wide and diverse literature on technical assistance, much of which refers to addressing knowledge and capacity gaps in lower- and middle-income countries. This report identifies some novel or emerging approaches which appear to move away from the traditional approaches that commonly centre on short-term filling of capacity gaps and being primarily ...» more
Interventions for collective action and accountability
Collective action has a relatively long history in political science and economic theory, but its application to governance programming in development is a relatively new phenomenon. As such there is little evidence of interventions that have been specifically designed to address collective action failures and increase accountability. There is, however, a range of literature ...» more
Regional and national capacity to cope with humanitarian risk
Key findings: There are few frameworks for assessing the capacity to cope with humanitarian risks at national scales, and those that exist vary greatly from one country to another; no clear common set of indicators is readily discernible. In general, however, the importance of governance, institutions, planning capacity and information management capacity have been frequently ...» more
Impact of election assistance
Key findings: There is a large body of evaluation literature relating to election assistance and it is difficult to accurately quantify the number of studies available. This report identifies a sample of impact evaluations undertaken in the last 10 years that apply a rigorous methodology. ‘Rigour’ is taken here to mean any approach that uses systematic, transparent and ...» more
Conflict and Stabilisation in Mali and the Sahel Region
The report covers factors including: Islamist terrorism; criminal networks and trafficking (of arms, drugs, cigarettes, and vehicles); and Tuareg rebellions against the Malian government. It also considers state weakness, including the weakness of state security structures in the north, and the role of neighbouring countries, ECOWAS, the AU and other international actors. ...» more
‘Triggers’ to scale up assistance in advance of shocks
A growing literature advocates the use of triggers for action as part of an early warning and response system for humanitarian assistance, although there is as yet little discussion of approaches to defining such triggers. Triggers based on humanitarian need can include particular triggers for different levels of crisis. The literature also notes that both 'entry' and 'exit' ...» more
Estimating the ‘legitimate’ percentage of annual military expenditures
Key findings: There are no frameworks that estimate a ‘legitimate’ annual percentage of military expenditure for countries. Legitimacy is often highly contested, and arms-importing and -exporting countries can differ, quite significantly, in their opinions on whether an arms transfer is legitimate and justified, or not. An internal needs assessment may outline different ...» more
Effectiveness of demand-led technical assistance and cooperation on public sector reforms
Key findings: No cases demonstrate unambiguously that improved economic governance and inclusive growth has been the result of demand-led technical assistance. However, existing literature that evaluates technical assistance and public sector reforms in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region shows that public sector reform (PSR) can remove constraints on inclusive ...» more
Effective methods to improve police performance
Key findings: There are few detailed case studies of cities or regions in developing countries that outline effective methods for police reform. This is mainly due to the lack of evaluation that objectively identifies certain types of police reform as having improved performance. It is also true that changes in performance may not be universally judged as an improvement, reform ...» more
Impact of municipal billing systems on revenue collection
Key finding: Billing processes play a critical role in revenue for a number of public sector organisations, including municipalities. In the delivery of public services, for example, billing drives cash flow and is the key source of information for customers using these services. This helpdesk report shows that in many countries, reforming billing processes, coupled with ...» more
Distortionary economic impacts of aid interventions in fragile states
Key findings: There is a wide range of literature that touches on the issues of economic impacts related to humanitarian and development interventions, including analyses and evaluations on different types of projects or programmes that have had impacts on the local economy. Within this literature the area of most relevance to conflict and post-conflict environments is that ...» more
Integrating parliamentary and political party strengthening in sectoral programmes
Key findings: There are limited examples of sectoral programmes that explicitly integrate support to parliamentary or political party strengthening in pursuit of sectoral goals. The majority of donor activities in support of parliaments and political parties have the objective of strengthening parliaments for the broader purpose of improving democratic governance. Such ...» more
Country Risk Indices
Key finding: There are many country risk indices available, primarily produced by private companies. Different risk indices use different combinations of political, social, economic, environmental and other factors, but there is no universally accepted methodology for assessing risk. Comparison between methodologies is made difficult by the relative opacity of the ...» more
