Civil society is widely understood as the space outside the family, market and state (WEF, 2013). What constitutes civil society has developed and grown since the term first became popular in the 1980s and it now signifies a wide range of organised and organic groups including nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), trade unions, social movements, grassroots ...» more
Helpdesk Reports
These rapid-response reports provide digests of key research findings, lessons and expert thinking on specific questions from development practitioners and policymakers. If your question is not already covered below, ask us for a report (free for staff of agencies that we have existing arrangements with).
Implementation Frameworks for International Summits or Conferences
International summits and conferences bring together a variety of stakeholders including high-level government actors, to discuss and agree on resolutions to tackle global problems. However, the extent to which the resolutions are implemented varies. Likewise, the extent to which governments and other stakeholders can be held accountable for the commitments that they make at ...» more
Effectiveness of Donor Support to Women in Formal Political Leadership-Narrative Review
This narrative review synthesises a selection of key evidence based on a rapid, non-systematic literature review (this makes it subject to limitations).The evidence base offers no comparative rankings on which types of interventions, and which specific interventions, have been more effective. Overall, it shows that the interventions most frequently used by aid actors, including ...» more
Cost-Effectiveness in Humanitarian Work: the Promotion of International Humanitarian Law
Lack of compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL), which can result in unlawful deaths, destruction and impediments to humanitarian relief operations, is a tremendous humanitarian challenge (Akande and Gillard, 2017; Kremte, 2017; Pejic, 2016). In order to achieve the main goal of IHL - to protect persons affected by violence and minimise human suffering – the mere ...» more
Cost-Effectiveness in Humanitarian Aid and Development: Resilience Programming
The results of the review show a gap in the literature in terms of providing conclusive evidence/data and analysis of the cost-effectiveness of resilience-related responses. Most of the reports, papers, briefs and notes that were reviewed tend to make normative assertions as to how important is to provide humanitarian assistance early enough and to direct efforts towards ...» more
Cost-Effectiveness in Humanitarian Aid: Localisation Programming
The localisation of humanitarian aid is a “collective process by the different stakeholders of the humanitarian system (donors, United Nations agencies, NGOs) which aims to return local actors (local authorities or civil society) to the centre of the response with a greater, more central role” (Groupe URD, 2017). The idea of promoting localisation in humanitarian aid through ...» more
Cost-Effectiveness in Humanitarian Work: Cash-Based Programming
There is consensus in the literature that giving people cash in humanitarian contexts provides greater choice and dignity while at the same time stimulating local markets. In comparison to in-kind approaches, cash emerges as more efficient to deliver and – depending on the particularities of a given context – it can also be equally or at times more effective at delivering the ...» more
Cost-Effectiveness in Humanitarian Work: Integration of Displaced Persons into Host Community Services
With unprecedented numbers of displaced persons around the world, the humanitarian system is facing huge financial pressures. The international community provides support (about US$22 billion in 2015) mainly through humanitarian programs, but the World Bank describes the current model as critically flawed (WBG 2017, p. 12) because forcibly displaced persons have to ...» more
Cost-Effectiveness in Humanitarian Work: Preparedness, Pre-financing and Early Action
Rigorous evidence of the cost-effectiveness of investments in disaster preparedness is limited. However, overall the available data points to disaster preparedness leading to clear reductions in both humanitarian costs and losses due to crises (lost lives, assets, livelihoods). While there is general consensus on the importance of preparedness, significant challenges mean it ...» more
A Mapping of Larger Youth Employment Programmes in Developing Countries
There is a robust literature on youth employment that spans academic and grey literature. This rapid literature review combines academic and grey literature to identify larger youth employment programmes in developing countries. The review identifies the countries, which have a national youth policy. There is no literature that assesses the sustainability of national youth ...» more
Local Governance in South Sudan: Overview
The system of local governance in South Sudan (independent since 2011) comprises both formal state structures and traditional authorities. The three tier local government structure faces significant capacity and resource constraints – manifested in weak effectiveness - which are being exacerbated by the government’s decision to increase the number of states in South Sudan from ...» more
Lessons from Local Governance Programmes in South Sudan
Donor-funded (governance) programming in South Sudan has been hampered by numerous challenges, notably renewed conflict and economic crisis. The literature points to a general failure by donors to appreciate these challenges and to donors’ overestimating state capacity, leading to overambitious programmes. Donors are urged to be flexible, integrate political and development ...» more
Evidence on Inequalities in Rwanda
Inequality refers to disparities between individuals (vertical inequalities) or groups (horizontal inequalities) in areas such as income, wealth, education, health, nutrition, space, politics and social identity (Rohwerder 2016). Intersecting inequalities occur when people face inequality in multiple, overlapping, spheres of their lives. Inequality is most commonly understood ...» more
Legislation and Policy Addressing Inequality and Redistribution in Rwanda
This report is one of three related K4D helpdesk reports on inequality in Rwanda. The other two examine links between poverty, inequality and exclusion (Carter 2018) and provide data on inequalities (Orrnert 2018). This review summarises key national policies and legislation related to inequality and redistribution in Rwanda. Where available, this review provides insights ...» more
Joint Operating Principles among Humanitarian Actors to Improve Access
This six-day helpdesk review provides an overview of academic, policy and practitioner literature that explores lessons or evidence from efforts to establish joint operating principles agreed by humanitarian actors to improve humanitarian access and factors that contributed to their success or failure? While there is some general guidance on strategies to address access ...» more
Effectiveness of Aid Interventions to Strengthen Collective Action that Facilitate Women’s Political Empowerment – Executive Summary
Collective action can play an important role in facilitating women's political engagement, and in advancing women's empowerment in formal and informal politics, in low-, middle-, and high-income countries, as shown by significant rigorous evidence. This executive summary summarises a rapid review which synthesises key findings on how aid interventions can strengthen ...» more
Effectiveness of Donor Support to Women in Formal Political Leadership – Executive Summary
Pressures to increase the number of women in formal politics have started to bear fruit over the past 20 years. This has led to a greater presence of women in elected, appointed, and recruited positions in public bodies, and (to a lesser extent) to their rise to senior positions in these settings. This executive summary summarises a rapid review which synthesises key ...» more
Effectiveness of Aid Interventions to Strengthen Collective Action that Facilitate Women’s Political Empowerment – Annotated Bibliography
There is significant rigorous evidence that collective action can play an important role in facilitating women's political engagement, and in advancing women's empowerment in formal and informal politics, in low-, middle- and high-income countries. Certainly, collective action does not automatically lead to engagement and empowerment. Further, it does not always lead to all ...» more
Cultural Practices on Burial and Care for the Sick in South Sudan
The literature on cultural practices for burial and care for the sick among individual ethnic groups in South Sudan was very limited. However, it clearly points to the importance of proper burials among all ethnic groups: these typically entail washing the body of the deceased; it can take several days before burial takes place; and graves are often located within or close to ...» more
Effectiveness of Aid Interventions to Strengthen Collective Action that Facilitate Women’s Political Empowerment – Narrative Review
Collective action can play an important role in facilitating women’s political engagement, and in advancing women’s empowerment in formal and informal politics, in low-, middle- and high-income countries, as shown by significant rigorous evidence. Yet, there is only limited and patchy rigorous evidence about how aid interventions can strengthen collective action to facilitate ...» more
