New research on how rural youth experience political violence, conducted by Ghassan Baliki (Senior Researcher at ISDC), Tilman Brück (Director at ISDC), Neil Ferguson (Senior Researcher at ISDC) and Wolfgang Stojetz (Senior Researcher at ISDC) has been highlighted in the 2019 edition of IFAD’s Rural Development Report, “Creating Opportunities for Rural Youth”. The research shows […]
Tilman Brück speaking at the Colombia Day at ZALF
Tilman Brück delivered a keynote speech on 24 May 2019 at the Colombia Day at ZALF (Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research). The workshop brought together Colombian and German experts for economic development, land use and peacebuilding. Tilman stressed the role of inequality in the postwar period, which can contribute to a resurgence of grievances and violence. […]
Research on the Effects of Conflict on Fertility published in “Demography”
New publication on the effects of conflict on fertility by Kati Kraehnert, Tilman Brück, Michele Di Maio and Roberto Nisticò has been published in Demography. This paper analyzes the fertility effects of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Results indicate the genocide had heterogeneous effects on fertility, depending on the type of violence experienced by the woman, […]
New ISDC-led Research on Jobs for Peace and Stability Published
Neil Ferguson, Senior Researcher at ISDC, Eleonora Nillesen, Research Affiliate at ISDC and Professor of Economics at UNU-MERIT, and Tilman Brück, Director of ISDC, have published new research on the relationships between jobs programmes and peace in the journal Economics Letters. The research, titled “Can employment build peace? A pseudo-meta-analysis of employment programmes in Africa” critically evaluates the […]
Call for Sessions and Papers: 5th Annual ‘Life in Kyrgyzstan’ Conference
Call for Papers and Sessions is open for the 5th Annual ‘Life in Kyrgyzstan’ Conference that will be held in Bishkek on 23-24 October 2019. The deadline is 16 June 2019.
Special Section at World Development: Food Security and Violent Conflict
A special section on quantitative analysis of conflict and food security has been published at World Development: Vol 119, Pages 1-234 (July 2019). In an open access introduction to the section, titled Food security and violent conflict: Introduction to the special issue, Tilman Brück and Marco d’Errico highlight the following points: Food insecurity and violent conflict are global […]
Einladung zur Teilnahme an verhaltensökonomischen Studien
Das neue EconLab am Leibniz Institut für Gemüse und Zierpflanzenbau e.V. (IGZ) in Großbeeren bei Berlin sucht Probanden zur Teilnahme an wissenschaftlichen, verhaltensökonomischen Studien im Rahmen eines BMBF-Projektes. In den Studien werden die Probanden am Bildschirm verschiedene Fragen beantworten. Dies sind die ökonomischen Experimente. Diese Experimente dauern in der Regel ein bis zwei Stunden und […]
ISDC delivers a mixed research methods course in Kyrgyzstan
Damir Esenaliev, Senior Researcher at ISDC, and Philipp Schröder, Research Affiliate at ISDC and lecturer at the University of Freiburg, conducted a research module on mixed methods research for the M.A. program ‘Economic Governance’ at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan). The module covered impact evaluation methods from the quantitative side and introduced students to […]
Call for Papers: 15th Annual HiCN Workshop “New Methods in Empirical Conflict Research”
In the last 15 years, civil conflict has gradually become an important subject of study for empirical economists. As a result, conflict research has adopted many empirical methods from mainstream economics. Furthermore, there is now a broad consensus that violent political conflict and economic development are intertwined, and a fast-growing literature studies this relationship with micro-data. At the same time, applied research on conflict is increasingly embracing new empirical methods, such as RCTs, geospatial analysis using high-resolution satellite imagery, machine learning methods, big data applications, and the large-scale digitization of archival resources. Each of these research tools has strengths and limitations and is the subject of ongoing methodological debates.
Call for Papers: Workshop on Home Gardens as a Coping Strategy in Crises and Humanitarian Emergencies
Tilman Brück will host the workshop titled “Home Gardens as a Coping Strategy in Crises and Humanitarian Emergencies: An International, Interdisciplinary Research Workshop” on 2-3 April 2019 in Bonn, Germany. The objective of the workshop is to advance our knowledge of home and school gardens, resilience, food security, and related interventions. The workshop aims to […]
Damir Esenaliev joins ISDC
Dr Damir Esenaliev joined ISDC as a Senior Researcher in January 2019. He brings topical expertise on peace-building, social cohesion, human development, labor markets, inequality, and rural development, and regional expertise in Central Asian and transition economies. Damir also has extensive experience designing and conducting panel data collection and impact evaluations. He will continue his […]
Third Workshop on Measuring Violent Conflict in Household Surveys
ISDC researchers provided training at the third “Measuring Violent Conflict in Household Surveys” workshop, held on 26-30 November in Perugia, Italy, as part of a workshop series organized by the World Bank. The participants included staff from National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in sub-Saharan Africa, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. The instructors included staff from […]
Simple statistical tools fail to describe jobs well in developing countries, new research by Damir Esenaliev and Neil Ferguson shows
In November 2018, Social Indicators Research published an original research article by Damir Esenaliev and Neil Ferguson on the relationship between good jobs and personal wellbeing. This study is one of the first conducted in a development context that looks beyond simple measures of job quality suggested by the classical labour supply model. This research […]
ISDC co-hosts the Fourth Annual Life in Kyrgyzstan conference in Bishkek
The Fourth Annual Life in Kyrgyzstan (LiK) conference took place in Bishkek on 17-18 October 2018. The academic event was attended by over 150 participants from 11 countries. The conference was organised by the University of Central Asia’s (UCA) Institute of Public Policy and Administration (IPPA), Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ), and ISDC – International Security and Development Center. […]
Evaluator training for the project “Seeds of Resilience”
In October, Ghassan Baliki conducted a baseline training for enumerators as part of the project “Seeds of Resilience: Quasi-Experimental Impact Analysis of an FAO Emergency Intervention in Syria”. The training took place at the Ministry of Agriculture, where about 30 enumerators from 9 Governorates in Syria participated. The data collection took place in November 2018. […]
Ghassan Baliki presenting at the Annual Workshop of the AFK Methods Working Group
Ghassan Baliki presented his working paper Crowd-seeding conflict and peace event data in Syria at the Annual Workshop of the German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies (AFK) Methods Working Group. The conference this year was devoted to papers that explore new qualitative and quantitative data in peace and conflict research. The workshop took place […]
Second Workshop in Measuring Violent Conflict in Household Surveys
ISDC researchers provided training at the second “Measuring Violent Conflict in Household Surveys” workshop, on 10-14 September in Perugia, Italy, as part of a workshop series organised by the World Bank. The participants included staff from National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in Africa and Middle East. The instructors included staff from the World Bank, the International […]
3ie Policy Brief: What works to improve nutrition and food security in the Sahel?
ISDC researchers contributed to the 3ie Policy Brief “What works to improve nutrition and food security in the Sahel?” This brief summarises the main findings and lessons from a synthesis of four 3ie-supported impact evaluations of the World Food Programme’s interventions to improve nutrition and food security outcomes. It offers recommendations to improve operational efficiency […]
New paper on the relationship between food security and violent conflict
Charles Martin-Shields and Wolfgang Stojetz published an article in World Development on the interlinkages between food security and violent conflict. This article emphasizes the endogeneity that characterizes the coupling between food (in)security and violent conflict. The authors make three contributions. First, they define conflict and food security using the standard Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the FAO databases, and illustrate […]
UNICEF Blog on administrative data: Missed opportunity for learning and research in humanitarian emergencies?
Tilman Brück contributed to a blog discussing the strengths and weaknesses of using administrative data collected during emergencies for research on children. The blog was written by researchers from the recent UNICEF Social Protection Workshop. Source: Administrative Data: Missed opportunity for learning and research in humanitarian emergencies? – Evidence for Action