Neil Ferguson of the Peacebuilding Program and ISDC’s Director, Tilman Brück, along with Paul Thissen from 3ie, were guest editors of a recent special issue at the Journal of Development Effectiveness. The special issue presents new learning on the rigorous evaluation of peacebuilding interventions and how such evaluations can be conducted.
This builds out of ISDC’s work with 3ie on the PeaceFIELD Initiative, which worked closely with the United Nations Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund, in order to evaluate key aspects of its work.
The special issue features eight open access articles, along with an introduction by the guest editors and an editorial by Assistant Secretary General Elizabeth Spehar. Work by ISDC affiliated authors includes work on local mediation support in Guatemala; peace radio at the Mali / Niger border; and two articles on farmer-herder conflict at the Sierra Leone / Guinea border, considering attitudes and behaviour, and conflict outcomes. Together, the special issue makes a strong case that civilian-led peacebuilding interventions work at both micro- and aggregate-levels to mitigate conflict risks, as well as establishing the possibilities for working on actively violent settings.
