We link employment to stability in five African countries to test if standard interventions influence complex outcomes. We show positive impacts on some indicators but negative externalities also arise. There are, thus, grounds for optimism but further work is required.
Job Advert: Junior Researcher at ISDC
ISDC is seeking a Junior Researcher (50% FTE) to support research efforts at the nexus of development and political violence. Under direction, the junior researcher will provide research, analysis and operational support.
Drivers of Resilience and Food Security in North-east Nigeria: Learning from Micro Data in an Emergency Setting
Endline analysis of FAO Northeast Nigeria Resilience Programme show significant improvements in food security particularly to IDPs and households living under extreme violent conflict, underscoring the significance of developmental interventions in protracted crises.
An Impact Evaluation of WFP Malnutrition Interventions in Niger
Although much has been learned about the performance of food aid interventions, less is known about their impact in situations of chronic, rather than acute, food insecurity. In this article, we show little medium-term impact of direct food provision of nutritional outcomes but a strong, positive, impact of assets based programming in chronically food insecure Niger.
How to Better Measure and Analyze Food Insecurity in Conflict-affected Areas
This project asseses the need for new data and variables that could and should be collected to better understand and respond to the onset of famine and other severe manifestations of food insecurity, particularly in conflict-affected and fragile places.
Rural Youth in the Context of Fragility and Conflict
Conflict disproportionately takes place in countries with large numbers of young people living in rural areas. Yet, this group is seldom the specific focus of analysis in the conflict or rural development literatures. The project outlines what can be learned from prior literature and how it can be applied to rural youth.
Impact Analysis of Food Security Interventions in North-East Nigeria
This project provides new evidence and recommendations from North-east Nigeria for food security interventions in conflict-affected settings. The findings are based on a review of relevant linkages food security and conflict and an empirical impact analysis of an agricultural input intervention by FAO.
Crowdsourcing Conflict and Peace ‘Events’ in the Syrian Conflict
In this project we develop and test a new method to collect high-quality violence and peace event data using the “crowdseeding” approach.
Maren M. Michaelsen
Dr. Maren M. Michaelsen is a Research Affiliate at ISDC. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Integrative Health Care and Health Promotion in the Faculty of Health at Witten/Herdecke University, where she works as a behavioural economist on a “Nudging for health” project in an interdisciplinary team. Her research interests are […]
Sami Miaari
Sami Miaari is currently a Lecturer at the Department of Labor Studies in Tel-Aviv University and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University and an ISDC Affiliate. Dr. Miaari’s research focuses on labor economics, the economic causes and consequences of conflict, including the economic costs of political instability and the […]
Just the Two of Us? Civil Conflicts, Pro-State Militants and the Violence Premium
Research on civil wars tends towards the study of networked revolutionary actors and a government, yet many conflicts have given rise to pro-state militants. In this article, I theorise that the rise of such groups increases net devotion to violence and confirm this violence premium using conflict data from Northern Ireland.
Money Changes Everything? Education and Regional Deprivation Revisited
It is very well established that conflict damages human capital accumulation of those exposed to violence. In this article, we hint at a much longer-term regional perspective. Areas that experience war in previous generations are the most deprived today and suffer poorer education performance than non-affected areas.
Impact Analysis of a Food Security and Resilience Program in Syria
A short- and medium-term impact evaluation of a food security and resilience intervention by FAO Syria that aims to address emergency needs, support early recovery, and build longer-term resilience in the agricultural sector.
Neil Ferguson
Dr Neil Ferguson is a Senior Researcher at ISDC and a Senior Research Associate at BIGS in Potsdam. He obtained his PhD in Economics in July 2013 from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, focusing on theoretical and empirical analysis about the role of multiple aggressors in civil conflicts. His current research interests address a broad cross-section of […]
Ghassan Baliki
Dr. Ghassan Baliki is a Senior Researcher at ISDC and a Research Associate at the Development Economics and Food Security research group at IGZ near Berlin. He obtained his PhD from Humboldt-University of Berlin, where he studied violent conflict dynamics in Syria at the micro-level. Ghassan’s research focuses on the interlinkages between violent conflict, fragility, […]