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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Donor Engagement with Social Movements
There is very limited literature on donor engagement with social movements. Of the literature that exists, the majority have been critical of such engagement. It is argued that donor funding of social movements, often through the funding of civil society organisations (CSOs) and NGOs, has co-opted and diluted these movements and led to the defection of its members. This has ...» more
Social Movements and Poverty Reduction
There is limited research available on the role of social movements in development processes. It is widely acknowledged that establishing a causal relationship between social movements and any observed change in societies is problematic. In particular, attribution is difficult because there are usually multiple variables involved in any process of social change, including other ...» more
Vetting Public Employees
Vetting refers to “processes for assessing an individual’s integrity as a means of determining his or her suitability for public employment.” Vetting may be applied to people who already hold public service positions, typically in post-conflict, post-authoritarian, or otherwise transitional contexts with the objective of removing individuals responsible for war crimes, human ...» more
Research on Social Movements
A number of specific research programmes and projects are using a multidisciplinary approach to probe the questions surrounding the dynamics, influence and prospects of social movements (as variously defined). The prominent programmes are located in the United Kingdom, but operate through international partnerships with other universities and research centres. Social movement ...» more
Budget Support and Civil Society
The following points are repeatedly made in the literature with regard to civil society engagement in the context of budget support: The key role for civil society in PRBS is in holding government to account, along with parliament. Donors providing budget support to governments have tended to simultaneously provide support to civil society to strengthen their capacities ...» more
African Regional Governance Institutions
There are vast literatures on regional integration and the role of regional institutions in Africa, ranging from official documentation to academic commentary. There are fewer evaluations or assessments of the attempts by regional institutions to promote good governance in Africa.Notwithstanding, the following challenges are identified in the literature:lack of political will ...» more
Impact of International Volunteering
There appears to be little robust evidence on the impact of international volunteering on development, poverty alleviation or awareness-raising. Nevertheless, from the literature identified in this report, the following direct and indirect impacts were most commonly noted:Direct services related to capacity building and technical transfersPositive effects on host community ...» more
Methodologies for Measuring the Value of Civil Society
The rise of social entrepreneurship and venture philanthropy has led to an explosion of interest in the area of measuring value and calculating the impact of non-profits and social organisations. There is enormous interest in generating and developing rigorous quantitative tools to assist in accurate measurement of impact and value and a significant number of organisations are ...» more
Donor Support to Non-state Providers of Security and Justice
The following recommendations on on donor support to non-state providers of security and justice services in fragile and conflict-affected states are made in the literature: There is a need for a ‘pragmatic realism’ approach, meaning that in addition to supporting state institutions, donors proportion a significant percentage of assistance, in the short- to intermediate-term, ...» more
