This report provides examples of professional and academic associations that work across three or more African countries, and that have some evidence of success. Types of impact are varied, but are usually identified as strong membership, attendance at national or international meetings, awareness of the organisation in the wider sphere, dissemination and uptake of ...» more
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.
Recent literature on instability and intrastate conflict in Zimbabwe
There is consensus in the recent (2011-13) literature on Zimbabwe that although the country has stabilised considerably since the last elections in 2008, the risk of internal conflict during the period surrounding the 2013 elections is high. The principal factors underpinning the potential for conflict are: The bitter divisions among the main political parties, the apparent ...» more
Promoting national identities
Most Somalis share the same ethnic group, genealogy, language, customary law, culture and religion. Despite possessing many characteristics of national identity, clanship and contract are fundamental for Somali political units. Somalia has many of the traits of what is defined as a nation, and also of national identity. However, the failure of the central state to provide and ...» more
Budget accountability and participation
Experts agree that the evidence base on budget transparency, accountability and participation is limited and underdeveloped. However there are a growing number of case studies and meta-analyses covering a wide geographic scope and diverse contexts, with a variety of methods and gender sensitivity. Key findings from the evidence include the following: There are examples ...» more
Political economy analysis for economic and private sector reforms
It is inherently difficult to identify how widely political economy analysis (PEA) is used to support economic and private sector (EPS) programming for a number of reasons. PEA is one of a number of factors that can influence programming and implementation and it is difficult to state categorically that a PEA had a definitive impact on reforms. It is also likely that there are ...» more
Stability and stabilisation approaches in multinational interventions
This rapid report is based on quantitative discourse analysis of stability and stabilisation approaches in all current UN, EU and NATO missions. The analysis included a total of 49 missions (covering peacekeeping, civilian and political missions) and 107 mandates/resolutions linked to these missions. Key findings:Out of a total of 49 missions examined for this report, 30 ...» more
Assessing seismic risk in Kenya
This report identifies literature that assesses seismic risk in Kenya. In this report seismic risk, as a concept, is understood to be the product of seismic hazard (the probability of harmful seismic phenomena) and seismic vulnerability (the degree of loss from seismic phenomena). In terms of overall seismic risk, the presence of part of the East African Rift (which runs ...» more
Tools for participatory analysis of poverty, social exclusion and vulnerability
Among the tools reviewed are: Ranking: Commonly divided into three approaches: problem ranking, preference ranking, and wealth ranking, which enable practitioners to gain an understanding of local perceptions and preferences on a range of issues, including poverty. Seasonal Calendars: Visual tools which can be useful for identifying periods of stress and vulnerability ...» more
Somali networks – structures of clan and society
This annotated bibliography focuses on issues of power, participation and governance in relation to Somali networks. The Somali majority belong to four patrilineal clan families: the Darod, Hawiye, Dir, and Rahanweyn. These are divided into sub-clans, which can be divided further, illustrating the complexity of the clan system. Minorities are comprised of three distinct social ...» more
Measuring the impact of PFM reforms on service delivery
Key findings At present there are no reliable, accurate tools that isolate and assess the impact of Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms on service delivery performance. This is due to the complex and indirect relationship between PFM systems and service delivery. A number of factors intervene in the relationship including local incentives and funding channelled outside of ...» more
Border insecurity in North Africa
The literature on border security in North Africa has several key themes: security and terrorism; migration; and goods trafficking. These issues are all intertwined. Migration and trafficking tend to follow the same geographical routes, which or may not also include weapons smuggling for extremist groups. In addition, radicalists’ movements across borders frequently interact ...» more
Interventions to increase levels of trust in society
Key findings It is possible to discern that interventions concerned with transforming state-society relations necessarily involve or require raising trust levels within society and/or between state-society. However, only a few of these interventions present trust-building as a central or explicit objective. In contrast, descriptions of trust deficits in fragile states abound ...» more
Child-friendly spaces for adolescent girls in emergency settings
The evidence base on this issue is small. Few programmes provide safe spaces exclusively for girls, although many child-friendly spaces run sessions by age and gender. Married girls and adolescent mothers are particularly under-served. Within emergency contexts, the provision of safe spaces tends to focus on psychosocial care and on developing social skills and social networks. ...» more
The effectiveness of measuring influence
The methods for evaluating influencing programmes are not well developed, and carrying out such evaluations is considered challenging. Projects often use multiple approaches to influencing, which demand different approaches to evaluation, and strong evaluations often use multiple methodologies to triangulate their findings. While there are many publicly available evaluations, ...» more
Remote management of projects in fragile states
This report examines examples of the use of remote management of projects in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). Remotely-managed projects are the primary mode of practice for many development actors in countries where security risks are high. The use of remote management in development cooperation has increased significantly in recent years, with projects in many ...» more
Interventions for collective action and accountability
Collective action has a relatively long history in political science and economic theory, but its application to governance programming in development is a relatively new phenomenon. As such there is little evidence of interventions that have been specifically designed to address collective action failures and increase accountability. There is, however, a range of literature ...» more
Impacts of urban crises in low-income versus middle-income countries
National income is not widely analysed as a determinant of how conflicts and disasters affect urban areas. There are very few high quality, systematic studies of how conflicts or disasters affect urban areas that clearly differentiate between low-income and middle-income countries. The evidence available on the effect of the overall level of economic development on disaster ...» more
Regional and national capacity to cope with humanitarian risk
Key findings: There are few frameworks for assessing the capacity to cope with humanitarian risks at national scales, and those that exist vary greatly from one country to another; no clear common set of indicators is readily discernible. In general, however, the importance of governance, institutions, planning capacity and information management capacity have been frequently ...» more
Violence against women and girls in Afghanistan
Violence against women and girls in Afghanistan is endemic, widespread and an undeniable reality. Though there have been some quantifiable improvements for women and girls since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, significant challenges remain in securing women’s rights in the country. Literature on gender-based violence (GBV) in Afghanistan is comprehensive and rich with ...» more
Impact of election assistance
Key findings: There is a large body of evaluation literature relating to election assistance and it is difficult to accurately quantify the number of studies available. This report identifies a sample of impact evaluations undertaken in the last 10 years that apply a rigorous methodology. ‘Rigour’ is taken here to mean any approach that uses systematic, transparent and ...» more
