ISDC is hiring Research Assistants in Applied Development Economics to support on-going research work on a variety of projects on the relationship between conflict and development. Some projects will include the analysis of large-scale household panel data (reference “Panel”) while others involve the study of country-level migration data (reference “Migration”).
Wolfgang Stojetz to participate at Lindau Nobel Laureautes Meeting
Wolfgang Stojetz has successfully completed a highly rigorous international selection process to participate in the 6th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences together with Laureates of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The meeting will take place on 22-26 August, 2017 in Lindau, Germany. This annual meeting brings together about 30 Nobel Laureates and the next generation of leading scientists: undergraduates, PhD students, and post-doc researchers from all over the world. The aim of the meeting is to foster the exchange among scientists of different generations, cultures, and disciplines.
Wolfgang Stojetz is a Research Affiliate at ISDC working on the economic, social and institutional interactions of development and violent mass conflict.
Global Peace Index 2017 Berlin Launch
Tilman Brück will chair the Launch of Global Peace Index 2017 which will take place on Monday, 26 June 2017 at Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin. In the 2017 Global Peace Index, Germany maintains its traditional top spot as the 6th most peaceful and peace-supporting country globally. In the middle of an election campaign that is partly fought over whether or not to double military spending in less than a decade to meet NATO’s 2% goal, the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) and the International Security and Development Center (ISDC) are very pleased to invite you for a presentation and discussion of this year’s Global Peace Index.
Workshop on Employment for Stability
A workshop on ‘Employment for Stability’ will be held in The Hague on 14 June 2017 from 10.00 – 12.00 to present and discuss findings of the research project “Does Opportunity Reduce Instability? A Meta-Analysis of Skills and Employment Interventions in LMICs”. The multi-year research project is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and led by The Hague Institute for Global Justice. The project brings together a large set of leading researchers working on stability and employment in development from a range of European and African institutions.
2nd Summer School “War, Reconstruction and establishment of peace”
The second edition of the Summer School “War, Reconstruction and establishment of peace” , organised by the European Centre of Peace Science, Integration and Cooperation (CESPIC), will take place in Tirana (Albania) on 18-22 September 2017. The Summer school aims to provide a group of international graduate students with scientific pillars about roots of war, peace and issues in peacebuilding. In line with Peace Science tradition, the program is interdisciplinary involving disciplines such as economics, political science, international relations and history. Further information can be found here.
Call for papers and session proposals: Life in Kyrgyzstan Conference
Institute of Public Policy and Administration of the University of Central Asia (UCA), Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), ISDC – International Security and Development Center, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are pleased to announce the third annual ‘Life in Kyrgyzstan’ Conference to take place in Bishkek on 12-13 October 2017.
The World Bank Brown Bag Workshop on Jobs, Gender, and Labor Market Policies in the Kyrgyz Republic: Evidence from a Panel Household Survey
The seminar will take place on 11 May 2017 at The World Bank in Washington DC. It will explore recent research findings on household labor behavior and labor markets developments using evidence from the Life in Kyrgyzstan Study – a unique, multi-topic longitudinal survey of 3000 households in the Kyrgyz Republic conducted between 2010 and 2016.
Workshop on Social Cohesion and Community-Driven Development in Fragile Environments: Lessons from Kyrgyz Republic and Beyond
The workshop, co-hosted by World Bank GSURR/social development, CDD Global Solutions Group, Aga Khan Foundation and the State and Peace-building Fund (SPF), will take place on 10 May 2017.
The Kyrgyz Republic’s ‘Social Cohesion Through Community Based Approaches (SoCo)” Project, financed by the World Bank’s State- and Peace-Building Trust Fund and the Aga Khan Foundation, was launched in 2013, with the objective of identifying, piloting and building capacity for social cohesion mechanisms in CDD interventions.
Workshop on Social Cohesion in Kyrgyzstan at George Washington University
Tilman Brück and Damir Esenaliev of ISDC will present at a workshop on Social Cohesion in Kyrgyzstan organised by the Central Asia Program of George Washington University on 10 May 2017. Social cohesion has emerged over the last two decades as an important concept in both academic and political discourse, especially in fragile and conflict-affected environments. At the same time, the evidence on how to build social cohesion and peace at the individual level has been quite scarce. This event will review some exciting new evidence on building peace and social cohesion at the micro-level from Central Asia.
IFPRI Seminar on Agricultural Transformation in Central Asia: The Case of Kyrgyzstan
ISDC is co-organising a Seminar on Agricultural Transformation in Central Asia in collaboration with IFPRI’s Central Asia Program, the University of Central Asia and SIPRI. The seminar will take place at International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC, USA on 9 May 2017. Papers presented in the seminar provide evidence on kidney beans and sheep meat value chains development; contractual arrangements, food safety compliance, and challenges in the dairy supply chain; welfare effects of smallholder export participation; and effects of income shocks on employment and migration in Kyrgyzstan. The authors use diverse sources of household survey data, including the Life in Kyrgyzstan Survey, the Kyrgyzstan Integrated Household Survey, the Dairy Value Chain Survey, etc.
Call for Papers on Social Protection in Contexts of Fragility and Forced Displacement
This call for papers aims to assemble high quality papers that will increase our understanding of: 1) the role of social protection in fragile contexts and settings of forced displacement and migration; and 2) synergies across the humanitarian and development divide in both contexts. The aim is to assemble 8 to 10 papers of sufficient quality to be jointly submitted for a special issue to the Journal of Development Studies, or featured in an edited book. Reviewed and approved papers will also be featured in the UNICEF Office of Research–Innocenti working paper series.
Call for Applications: Summer School on Social Cohesion 2017
The Summer School on Social Cohesion: Concept, Implementation and Impact Evaluation is a capacity-building initiative for researchers, practitioners and policymakers in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia. It is organised as part of the Social Cohesion through Community-based Development project implemented in Kyrgyzstan from 2014 to 2017. The project aims to identify, pilot and build capacity for social cohesion mechanisms in community-driven development approaches. The Summer School will be held from 11–18 June 2017 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Researchers, primarily young professors, PhD students, development practitioners, and policy analysts from government, international agencies and civil society organisations based in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) are encouraged to apply. The application deadline is 5 April 2017. More details can be found here.
New Article: Do jobs aid peace? The impact of employment interventions on peace, security and stability
The article titled “Do jobs aid peace? The impact of employment interventions on peace, security and stability” by Tilman Brück, Neil T.N. Ferguson, Valeria Izzi and Wolfgang Stojetz has been published in the February/March 2017 issue of GREAT Insights on Youth employment in fragile countries. The magazine is published by the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM).
Call for Papers: 13th Annual HiCN Workshop “Development Aid in Conflict-Affected Countries”
We invite papers that can shed light on the effect of food aid on the beneficiaries as well as the warring parties, on demobilization, reintegration and employment programs, on the role of media during conflict, on forced displacement, on new ways to collect data during conflict and on the impact of prevention and peace programs, to name but a few.
MEEA Best Paper Award received by Sami H. Miaari
The paper “Should I Trade or Should I Go (to War)?: Lessons from the Second Intifada” by Sami H. Miaari has received the “Best Paper Award” by the Middle East Economic Association. The paper was selected from among all papers presented at MEEA conferences between January 2016 and January 2017.
Job announcement: Research Assistant at the University of Central Asia (UCA)
The Institute of Public Policy and Administration (IPPA) at the University of Central Asia (UCA) is looking for a full-time Research Assistant. IPPA was established in 2011 to strengthen public policy in Central Asia. It provides in-depth analysis on current and emerging policy issues facing the region, and improves the analytical capacity of governments and civil society to use evidence in decision-making processes through professional development. The Consultant/Research Assistant will assist with implementing research, training and dissemination activities of IPPA projects. To facilitate these activities, the consultant will be granted UCA corporate e-mail address as well as authorised to perform related to IPPA projects functions (request contracts, make payments related to IPPA projects, etc. More information is available here.
Call for Papers: Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference
The 17th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference, annual meeting of NEPS, will be held on 26th-28th June 2017 at the University of Antwerp, Prinsstraat 13, Antwerpen, Belgium .
Those who are interested in participating should submit their proposal including abstract, title, author’s name(s), affiliation(s) to the following address: conference@europeanpeacescientists.org. For more information, please see the full Call for Papers.
Call for Papers: Planning a Special Issue Proposal on “Food Security and Conflict” for World Development
The Households in Conflict Network (HiCN), ISDC – International Security and Development Center and FAO are planning a proposal for a special issue on the topic of “food security and conflict” to be submitted to “World Development” in mid-January 2017. This builds on a workshop on the theme held at FAO in Rome in October 2016 (LINK). Some of the papers presented there and a few additional papers will be proposed to the editors of World Development for consideration as a special issue.
Job Opening: Research Assistants in Applied Micro-Development
ISDC is currently hiring Research Assistants in Applied Micro-Development to support on-going research work on a variety of projects on the relationship between conflict and development.
New Publication on the Impact of Employment Programmes on Peace
Tilman Brück, Neil T. N. Ferguson, Valeria Izzi & Wolfgang Stojetz authored a report titled “Jobs Aid Peace: Review of the Theory and Practice of the Impact of Employment Programmes on Peace in Fragile and Conflict-affected Countries”. This report provides new understanding on employment programmes in fragile and conflict-affected states as ‘inputs’ and peacebuilding outcomes in these states as ‘outputs’, by presenting the first systematic accumulation of knowledge on this relationship.
