Identifying the impact of violence arising from radicalisation processes and extremism upon poverty and development outcomes is difficult due to the lack of literature which deals with the subject matter specifically. The discussion concerning radicalisation and extremist violence tends to focus on the following areas: 1) Islamic extremism and religious fundamentalism; 2) ...» 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).
Child Marriage
This short report summarises some of the main evidence presented in recent literature about the prevalence, trends and impact of child marriage (defined by UNICEF as customary or statutory union where one or both of the partners is under the age of 18). It is based on a 2-day survey of prominent (widely-cited) literature published by credible institutions. It does not ...» more
Performance Related Pay
There are very few recent resources addressing performance related pay (PRP) in the central government administrations of developing countries. Several of the experts contacted emphasised that PRP has not been widely implemented in the developing world, and none were able to suggest a case where PRP had been implemented successfully. Most of the work in this area has instead ...» more
Performance-based Funding
Performance-based funding, also referred to as performance-based financing or results-based financing, comprises a broad variety of mechanisms. It includes donor-to-country disbursement mechanisms designed to improve aid effectiveness, intergovernmental transfers, donor-to-supplier disbursement mechanisms, and a range of tools that national governments can adopt. The vast ...» more
Conceptualising Inequality
Intra-country inequality, part of the wider concern with inequality between countries or global regions, can be understood in three broad and interlinking ways: Economic inequality, which is what much of the existing conceptualisation of inequality discusses and is indeed the origin of international development concerns with inequality of income, consumption and distribution ...» more
Reintegration Best Practice
The following ‘lessons learned’ in relation to reintegration are repeated across the literature:Reintegration is a long process and programmes must be part of a wider security sector reform strategyReintegration should be nationally led and take a participatory approach, including various stakeholders.Planning for reintegration should begin early.Clear selection criteria should ...» more
Decentralisation and Statebuilding
Decentralisation and the building or restoring of sub-national government institutions can significantly alter centre-periphery relations. Much of the literature cites the potential for these processes and structures to contribute to improving state-citizen relations and advancing state legitimacy.The contribution that decentralisation and sub-national government can make to ...» more
Mainstreaming Peace and Conflict Prevention in Zimbabwe
There are few resources detailing how peacebuilding, conflict prevention and conflict resolution have practically been integrated into developing and humanitarian programming in Zimbabwe. However the Zimbabwe literature is in-keeping with the general literature in that it talks about: a) governance; b) education; and c) developing the capacities of staff within these sectors. ...» more
Peacebuilding Commission
The Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) is an intergovernmental advisory body, which formally came into existence in June 2006. The PBC, the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) and the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) comprise the UN’s new peacebuilding architecture. ‘The PBC (and by extension, the PBF and PBSO) were designed to:bring sustained attention to the pressing needs of countries ...» more
Technical Assistance for Post-disaster Recovery
There is a paucity of literature making explicit recommendations for technical assistance to support long-term recovery in post-disaster conflicts. Nevertheless, much of the criticism leveled against TA is the same as that leveled against early recovery interventions, including:the fact that TA remains largely supply-drivena low level of ownership and involvement on the part of ...» more
Performance of Civil Society Organisations
There is no clear consensus that civil society organisations necessarily perform better or worse than private sector, government, or multilateral organisations. Few studies make direct comparisons of performance, but those that do show mixed results. This is not surprising, considering the wide range of organisations and country contexts.This report focuses primarily on the ...» more
Support to Public Administration Reform in Central and Eastern Europe
In general MDTFs are a popular way of organising donor support for public administration reform (PAR) in difficult transition environments. The perceived benefits are: lower transaction costs for donors coordination of donor priorities and approaches attracting a wide range of donors to contribute facilitating easier harmonisation with country strategies and ...» more
Deteriorating Governance
The literature on the causes and forms of deteriorating governance is in its infancy, and draws heavily from the broader and more established literature on the causes of forms of fragility. Some of the prominent themes on the causes of deteriorating governance are: Common pathways to deterioration are escalation of communal conflict, state predation, regional or guerilla ...» more
Economic Growth and Statebuilding
There is very limited literature that explicitly discusses linkages between (1.) economic growth and employment generation and (2.) state- and peace-building. As such, this helpdesk report relies on literature that makes implicit references to such connections. The following are a summary of key points that emerged from the review. The review did not uncover any information ...» more
The World Bank in Fragile States
Some of the recurring findings from the literature on the World Bank’s performance in fragile and conflict-affected states include the following:Despite efforts to become more conflict-sensitive, the Bank’s approach to conflict-affected and post-conflict states focuses more on ‘doing things differently’ than ‘doing different things’. This is partly due to a continued reluctance ...» more
Public Financial Management and Frontline Service Delivery
A review of the literature suggests that in designing PFM reform programmes it is essential to consider the following:PFM reforms must be understood as part of a more general public sector reform process.PFM reforms should have poverty reduction as a central objective.PFM reforms need to be designed at sector level in order to accommodate the needs, capacities and willingness ...» more
Political Economy of Sub-National Government
Of the limited recent literature that considers the political economy of sub-national (state and provincial) government, the case of Afghanistan is prominent. International support to sub-national governance in Afghanistan has been relatively well documented, with much of the literature emphasising that reform efforts have often neglected to account for the political economy of ...» more
Political Economy of Civil Service Reform
Much of the recent literature on civil service reform (CSR) emphasises that reforms have tended to fail and that political factors are critical to the success or failure or reform efforts. Political contextual factors and the impact of bureaucrats’ and politicians’ personal interests are most frequently discussed. Regional and ethnic political factors were generally not ...» more
Long-Term Job Creation in Fragile States
There is very limited literature on the promotion of sustainable longer-term employment in fragile states. Most resources on job creation focus on short-term job creation and income-generation in conflict-affected contexts. There is, however, some discussion on how to link short-term job creation efforts with longer-term action that lays the foundation for sustainable jobs ...» more
Civil Service Reform in Rwanda
It is generally asserted that the Government of Rwanda has embarked on an impressive array of public sector reforms, with little criticism of their commitment or political willingness to support change. Public sector reform is discussed in the following policy contexts: human resource development; good governance and institutional strengthening; decentralisation to district- ...» more
