Key messages: The major trends and gaps in the evidence in this report are: On the whole, ‘gender’ is used to refer to women. More recent papers include more analysis of how CTs impact men, especially on if they find it disempowering for women to be favoured as beneficiaries. Gender analysis is not deeply ingrained into emergency CT programme evaluation. Many papers include a ...» more
Humanitarian Capability Definitions and Components
There is a dearth of literature on the concept of humanitarian capability. References often use capability and capacity interchangeably. Discussions of humanitarian performance show parallels with those on capability. There are almost no holistic, systematic or comparative reviews of the notion of humanitarian capability. References tend to focus on one level of analysis or one ...» more
Perception surveys in fragile and conflict affected states
Perception surveys are widely used in OECD countries, and are increasingly used in developing countries and in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). Some results of these surveys have been published, and are publicly available. However, many perception surveys are not published due to sensitivities around the questions and data collected. Perception surveys measure ...» more
Women and violent extremism
While gender has tended to be ignored in the literature on terrorism and political violence, a gender perspective of violent extremism has started to receive media and academic attention. However, experts identify the need for more systematic research on gender implications in terrorism and counter-terrorism studies. This rapid review of the literature finds that: Women’s roles ...» more
Violence against women and girls in Haiti
No official government statistics are available on the prevalence of violence against women and girls in Haiti. Experts acknowledge that reports by non-governmental organisations and small-scale, isolated surveys reveal only a partial picture. Moreover, much of the available analysis is focused on urban areas, and in particular Port-au-Prince; fewer studies document the ...» more
Effectiveness of interventions in the humanitarian field to support community resilience
Key finding: There is very little evidence available of the effects of humanitarian interventions on resilience for a number of reasons. First, the concept of resilience as it is applied to disasters and human societies remains in its infancy. Second, regarding interventions on resilience, there is a limited evidence base and a short retrospective timeframe. Third, the quality ...» more
Risks, effects and prevalence of VAWG
Key facts on the prevalence of violence against young women and girls include: Globally, up to six out of every ten women experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. A World Health Organization study of 24,000 women in 10 countries found that the prevalence of physical and/or sexual violence by a partner varied from 15 percent in urban Japan to over 70 percent ...» more
Monetary values of the private psychological costs of VAWG
Violence against women and girls is not only an important human rights and development issue, but there is increasing evidence that the economic and social costs are considerable. Several studies have calculated the direct costs to the medical, judicial and penal systems, as well as the economic losses incurred by victims. However, few studies have attempted to quantify the ...» more
Use of participatory methods in VAWG evaluations
In spite of the growing body of evidence that violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a serious human rights and development issue, there remains a paucity of evaluations of the impact of interventions in this area (particularly the impact on girls). The majority of evaluations of programmes to prevent or tackle VAWG take the form of qualitative, input or process-level ...» more
Factors Contributing to Transitional Justice Effectiveness
Many claims have been made about the positive impact that transitional justice can have on societies recovering from violent conflict. Sceptics argue, however, that many transitional justice measures can undermine negotiated settlements and exacerbate divisions. There is growing recognition of the need to engage in more systematic research on the effects and impact of ...» more
DDR and Transitional Justice
This report looks at the links between DDR and transitional justice. DDR programming has become a regular component of international peace support and peacebuilding architecture. DDR programmes can play an important role in limiting violence by disarming large numbers of actors and disbanding illegal, dysfunctional or bloated military structures. While there is a growing body ...» more
Conflict Prevention and Local Engagement
Conflict prevention refers to approaches to avoid, minimise, and/or contain potential violent conflicts, and to prevent violent conflict from re-emerging. Engagement with local actors such as civil society, politicians, and community groups can have an important positive impact on conflict prevention, both in situations that have not yet experienced violent conflict and in ...» more
Climate Change and State Fragility
There is very little literature available that explicitly discusses the interplay between climate change and state fragility. The general assumption is that the social and economic impacts of climate change are likely to generate demands which they will be unable to meet and may be overwhelmed by. In fact, increased demand for adaptation and mitigation activities may divert ...» more
Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Principe
The two small island countries of Equatorial Guinea (EG) and São Tomé and Principe (STP) have experienced several governance problems over the years, recently compounded by the discovery of oil and the prospect of oil revenues. Fears of the ‘resource curse’ and the potential for conflict have resulted in a series of reforms projects.There is little documentation available on ...» more
Literature on Yemen
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Drivers of Extremism
There is little consensus on what the key drivers of radicalisation and extremism are. Some scholars and policy-makers argue that an absence of participatory democracy and a legitimate arena to channel discontent contributes to extremism. However, others have found no causal connection between authoritarianism and extremism. A common finding in the literature is that while ...» more
