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Home»DFID

UK Department for International Development (DFID)

The GSDRC has provided research services to DFID since 2001, initially serving governance advisers, and gradually expanding to also cover social development, conflict, and humanitarian issues. The following GSDRC publications were commissioned by DFID.

Humanitarian results indicators and how they relate to the SDGs

Helpdesk Report
  • Anna Strachan
April 2017

Donor agencies use a number of indicators for humanitarian action.  In June 2016, ECHO reduced the number of KRIs (Key Results Indicators) it uses from 113 to 35 (ECHO also permits partners to combine pre-defined key results indicators with additional custom indicators).  In addition to the sectors covered in this report ECHO also has humanitarian indicators for mine action and ...» more

Data on the prevalence of the worst forms of child labour

Helpdesk Report
April 2017

This rapid review synthesises findings from rigorous academic, practitioner, and policy references published in the past fifteen years that discuss the prevalence of the worst forms of child labour. Globally, children are routinely engaged in paid and unpaid forms of work that are considered not harmful to them. They are classified as child labourers when they are either too ...» more

Changing gender and social norms, attitudes and behaviours

Helpdesk Report
  • Huma Haider
April 2017

This annotated bibliography presents studies of programmes that aim to bring about changes in gender and social norms, and changes in wider attitudes and behaviours. Much of the literature and some programme designs recognise the need to change social norms in order to change behaviours, such as HIV/AIDs prevention and better sanitation and hygiene. The report looks at ...» more

Transparency and performance

Helpdesk Report
  • Linnea Mills
April 2017

This report presents and discusses the evidence on impact from greater donor transparency, particularly in terms of accountability. In this report we distinguish between two types of aid information: information collected and disseminated by donor agencies about the results of their activities (looking closer at results based management), and information open to the public ...» more

Transparency and accountability initiatives in the extractives sector

Helpdesk Report
  • Andy McDevitt
April 2017

Research on the impact and effectiveness of transparency and accountability initiatives (TAIs) targeted at the extractives sector is hard to come by. With the exception of some more systematic evaluation of the impact of multi-stakeholder initiatives, in particular the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the existing evidence is weak. Indeed, beyond the ...» more

Parliamentary transparency and accountability

Helpdesk Report
  • Linnea Mills
April 2017

This report presents and discusses what evidence exists about initiatives to promote transparency among legislators, members of parliament (MPs), and legislative processes and what impact this has had on legislative accountability. In this report we distinguish between two types of accountability: vertical (in which citizens play a direct role in holding the powerful to ...» more

Lessons from peace processes

Helpdesk Report
  • Dylan O’Driscoll
April 2017

Lesson learning has played an important role in advancing peace processes across the globe.1 Although no two conflicts are alike there are a number of wider lessons and practices that can be transferred to other peace processes. However, it is important to understand the differences and similarities in order to develop the lessons within the dynamics of the particular case ...» more

Effectiveness of working in consortia

Helpdesk Report
  • Becky Carter
March 2017

The role of working in partnerships to address complex development challenges is gaining increasing attention. Development research suggests that collaboration might be the key to meaningful and practical solutions to complex real-world problems (Gonsalves 2014: 2). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promote multi-stakeholder partnerships. Working in consortia is one ...» more

Role of business in tackling modern slavery in supply chains

Helpdesk Report
  • Iffat Idris
March 2017

Key findings: Not much research has been done on business supply chain management and modern slavery: The available literature is extremely limited. Pressures on companies to tackle modern slavery in supply chains are increasing: These include growing consumer concerns about the issue, fears of reputational damage, the potential for companies to charge more for ‘slave ...» more

Funding of anti-modern slavery interventions 

Helpdesk Report
  • Iffat Idris
March 2017

This review looks at the availability of funds to tackle modern slavery1 and human trafficking2, and the availability of data in this regard. It seeks to move beyond the findings of Martina Ucnikova’s 2014 paper, OECD and Modern Slavery: How much aid money is spent to tackle the issue?, and identify updated (post-2013) data on funding by governments as well as private sector ...» more

Changes in economic activity during and after conflict 

Helpdesk Report
  • Anna Louise Strachan
March 2017

Conflict changes economic activity in a number of ways. This report looks at whether these  changes in economic activity become entrenched after conflict has ended. The available  evidence found within the scope of this report suggests that the extent to which changes in  economic activity become entrenched after conflict depends on how developed a country was prior to conflict ...» more

Innovative financing methods for social protection

Helpdesk Report
  • Laura Bolton
March 2017

This report provides a rapid literature review of the evidence on innovative financing methods for social protection using global case studies. The review found that financing for social protection often comes from government funds. Options for government to increase social investment can be found through reallocating public expenditures, increasing tax revenues, expanding ...» more

Integrating special-status territories into national political structures

Helpdesk Report
  • Becky Carter
March 2017

This rapid literature review has searched for experiences of areas or regions that have gone from having a form of special status governance to integration into a national political, legal and administrative system. The focus was on identifying cases similar to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan, and the Government of Pakistan’s proposed reforms to this ...» more

Economic drivers of conflict in the Western Balkans

Helpdesk Report
  • Anna Strachan,
  • Iffat Idris
March 2017

This report looks at each of the six Western Balkans countries listed above, identifies the key economic challenges they face and assesses whether any of these are, or have the potential to become, drivers of conflict. The literature reviewed largely comprised reports from international development/finance organisations, notably the World Bank, IMF and European Commission, as ...» more

Effectiveness of tax reform interventions

Helpdesk Report
  • Laura Bolton
March 2017

The academic and practitioner literature on tax reform, and comments from several experts contacted in connection with this report, emphasise that improving the performance of tax systems is highly complex and context-specific, without simple or direct answers. Improvements are only likely to come from combinations of large and small changes made with close and detailed ...» more

Impacts of tax capacity on development outcomes 

Helpdesk Report
  • Brian Lucas
March 2017

There is increasing recognition that strong tax systems can have impacts on economic growth, the sustainability of revenues for expenditure, state-building, and inequality, although there are debates about the trade-offs to achieving these differing and sometimes incompatible objectives. Tax revenue appears to be more likely to be used to support broad development goals than ...» more

Mapping donor activities in support of tax capacity

Helpdesk Report
March 2017

Domestic resource mobilisation has become a high priority on the international development agenda, with building tax capacity integral to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the G20’s Tax agenda. This rapid review provides a mapping of the most prominent agencies and initiatives working on tax capacity building, identifying key work streams and ...» more

Modern slavery in the DRC

Helpdesk Report
  • Huma Haider
March 2017

‘Modern slavery’ encompasses a variety of situations in which one person is forcibly controlled by one or more others for the purpose of exploitation (Cockayne, 2015). ‘Forced or compulsory labour’ is defined by the ILO Forced Labour Convention as ‘all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered ...» more

Sinai conflict analysis

Helpdesk Report
  • Iffat Idris
March 2017

The Sinai conflict has been underway since 2011 and has become progressively more intense and violent, fuelled by localised grievances as well as wider regional developments. The key actors involved are militant jihadist groups, local Bedouin tribes and the Egyptian government/military; others such as Israel, Gaza and the Multinational Forces and Observers have varying ...» more

Conflict analysis of Egypt

Helpdesk Report
  • Anna Louise Strachan
February 2017

In 2011 Egypt experienced mass protests culminating in the fall of long serving president, Hosni Mubarak. The time in power of the country’s first democratically elected President, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, was short-lived. He was deposed by Egypt’s military on 3 July 2013, following anti-government demonstrations. Abdul Fatah el-Sisi, former head of the armed ...» more

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Outputs supported by DFID are © DFID Crown Copyright 2025; outputs supported by the Australian Government are © Australian Government 2025; and outputs supported by the European Commission are © European Union 2025

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