This report reviews the relationship between social cohesion and state fragility – focusing on literature from 2010 onwards. There is no clear empirical understanding in the literature of how social cohesion contributes to state resilience or fragility, as it is very difficult to measure, and to assess independently other variables that impact on state fragility. Key points ...» 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).
Monitoring and evaluating civil society partnerships
This report lists and describes tools used by NGOs to monitor the quality of their relationships with partner organisations. It begins with a brief analysis of the types of tools and their approaches, then describes each tool. This paper focuses on tools which monitor the partnership relationship itself, rather than the impact or outcomes of the partnership. While there is ...» more
Regional development programmes and poverty reduction
This report looks into the actual performance, and possibly impact, of regional development programmes on national-level poverty reduction and associated factors such as ‘good governance’. The evidence base presents some strengths, such as the availability of diverse and rigorous evaluations, but also significant difficulties, most notably the lack of clear data on impact, ...» more
Ground rules for military conduct
Under international humanitarian law (IHL), all parties involved in non-international armed conflicts – whether state actors or non-state armed groups – should comply with international standards of behaviour. In many contexts, humanitarian organisations broker ‘ground rules’ with state and non-state actors to ensure compliance with IHL standards. The literature base in this ...» more
Community-based social protection
This report reviews the use and effectiveness of community-based social protection (CBSP) mechanisms, and examines how they are integrated into formal social protection schemes and what impact this might have. It begins with a loose definition of the terms used, followed by a section on the evidence on how effective CBSP appears to be. The following section presents the main ...» more
Relationship between illicit economic activity and illicit financial flows
Econometric evidence finds a mutually reinforcing relationship between illicit economic activities and illicit financial flows. Qualitative research identifies impacts of illicit economic activities and financial flows. These may provide potential ways of explaining the causal link. It is important to note that data on illicit economic activities and illicit financial flows ...» more
Citizens’ role in political settlements
Political settlement literature focuses predominantly on elites, with citizens often seen as passive beneficiaries or potential spoilers. However, emerging literature on the role of civil society in peace processes identifies roles that citizens have played and can play, in creating and maintaining what are essentially political settlements. This report outlines the concept of ...» more
Democratic governance initiatives – policy advocacy
It appears that there are many descriptive case studies of civil society advocacy campaigns to strengthen democratic governance, but few publicly available evaluations of the international interventions to provide support to these campaigns and the civil society organisations (CSOs) involved. Some studies do mention links between the policy advocacy initiatives and poverty ...» more
Impact of extensive disasters
Extensive risk is defined by UNISDR as ‘The widespread risk associated with the exposure of dispersed populations to repeated or persistent hazard conditions of low or moderate intensity, often of a highly localized nature, which can lead to debilitating cumulative disaster impacts’. Examples of types of extensive disasters are given in the literature as floods, landslides, ...» more
Women’s and girls’ benefits from market-oriented agriculture in Uganda
Knowledge about women’s and girls’ benefits from commercial agriculture is limited but sufficient to form the basis of this report. Internal obstacles include: ownership, tenure and access in relation to land; a gendered division of labour and time; unequal domestic decision-making power; interactions between poverty, the harvest cycle and the food market; and changing ...» more
Social inclusion in productive safety net programmes
Evidence is scattered and quite limited, with a heavy slant towards Ethiopia. Multi-country literature offers the following on social inclusion: Lessons for projects, programmes and policies: - Community participation: beneficiary outreach is key. Participatory targeting, project selection and monitoring are useful, though attention needs to be paid to exclusion, ...» more
Post-2015 governance and peace indicators
The post-2015 High Level Panel (HLP) produced a report in May 2013 which outlined their recommendations for moving the development agenda beyond the Millennium Development Goals. The report contained 11 illustrative goals which the UN might consider for adoption. This report considers potential indicators for the new Goals 10 and 11, which are: 10. Ensure Good Governance and ...» more
National databases of the poor for social protection
There is very scant literature on creating or unifying registries to make up a national database of poor households or individuals to be used for social protection programmes (expert comments). Literature on registries tends to relate to the benefits of civil registration (i.e. the registering of births and deaths), or how better to target and register the poor. This report ...» more
Mapping breastfeeding programmes in low and middle-income countries
Most of the programmes are intended to increase the rate of children that receive exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) up to the age of six months, as per recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO). Other measures such as increasing the rate of early initiation of breastfeeding, as well as training and education initiatives, ultimately aim to achieve the same goal of EBF ...» more
Literature review poverty, social analysis and the political economy of Tonga
Key findings: This rapid review examines evidence on poverty, social and political economy analysis published since 2010. The majority of the literature found through this review has been published by regional and international organisations, donors, and the Tongan government. There is substantial policy and practitioner literature that examines the Pacific as a region, or ...» more
Democratic governance initiatives civic education and media
This rapid review synthesises the findings of successful democratic governance interventions supporting civic education and a free and independent media. The choice of cases to include has been limited as not many evaluations of civic education and media initiatives are publicly available. Moreover it has been challenging to find evaluations that explore the link between these ...» more
Evidence on ‘rule of law’ aid initiatives
This report reviews the contribution of rule of law to development and poverty reduction, with evidence from aid initiatives. The first section provides a brief overview of the evidence base on the links between rule of law and development and poverty reduction. The second looks at evidence from successful aid initiatives, focusing on how interventions have contributed to rule ...» more
Community policing in fragile and conflict-affected states
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
Evaluation Capacity Development
While donors’ efforts to support evaluation capacities of developing countries have increased over the last 20 years, this rapid review of the literature finds a limited evidence base on evaluation capacity development (ECD) approaches and their effectiveness. There are more reports of innovative and good practices than rigorous evidence on what has worked. Nevertheless, the ...» 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
