When it comes to considering whether or not employment programmes can build stability, there are three things that it is important to bring to any debate. First, not only is any virtuous circle a nice idea in and of itself but there are really good reasons, theoretically, to believe that jobs interventions can build stability. […]
A White Paper on Identifying Priority Variables on Households, Firms and Markets for Understanding Micro-Dynamics of Food Security in Insecure Situations
The earlier famine and other forms of acute and severe food crises can be identified, the sooner programmatic responses can be designed and implemented. Often, however, these earliest stages fall into a grey area: where food insecurity is too severe to be considered a development problem but not severe enough to be considered a humanitarian […]
Monitoring and Impact Analysis of the BMZ and EU-funded FAO Resilience Programme in Syria
The objective of this report is to present insights of a statistical analysis of recent survey data from Syria to support FAO Syria in building knowledge, learning and capacity. Our analyses reveal a set of very clear results, which have important policy implications. Our empirical analysis con rms that food security in Syria has been […]
Supporting Emergency Needs, Early Recovery and Longer-term Resilience in Syria’s Agriculture Sector
Funded by DFID, FAO Syria is implementing the “Supporting emergency needs, early recovery and longer-term resilience in Syria’s agriculture sector” programme, which delivers “emergency” and “recovery” support to rural households across Syria. The programme has two principal stages: a “baseline stage” taking place in 2018/2019 and a “midline and endline stage” taking place in 2019/2020. […]
Return Migration and Self Employment: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan
A common finding of the migration literature is that migrants are more likely to choose self-employment upon return to their origin countries than non-migrants. This has led to the belief that return migration stimulates entrepreneurship in source countries and hence supports economic development. In this paper, we test these assertions, drawing on the Life in […]
Assets for Alimentation? The Nutritional Impact of Assets-Based Programming in Niger
A recent strand of aid programming aims to develop household assets by removing the stresses associated with meeting basic nutritional needs. In this paper, we posit that such nutrition-sensitive programmes can reduce malnourishment by encouraging further investment in diet.
On the Legacies of Wartime Governance
This paper explores the long-term impact of individual exposure to ‘wartime governance’ on social and political behavior.
Determinants and Dynamics of Forced Migration to Europe: Evidence from a 3-D Model of Flows and Stocks
Violent conflict is a well-recognised driver of forced migration but literature does not usually consider the pull factors that might also cause irregular movements. In turn, the decision to leave and of where to go are rarely considered separately. This is in contrast to literature on regular international migration, which considers both push and pull […]
The effects of violent conflict on household resilience and food security: Evidence from the 2014 Gaza conflict
This paper studies how conflict affects household resilience capacity and food security, drawing on panel data collected from households in Palestine before and after the 2014 Gaza conflict.
Post‐socialist transition and intergenerational educational mobility in Kyrgyzstan
We investigate long‐term trends in intergenerational educational mobility in Kyrgyzstan and find that Kyrgyzstan maintained high educational mobility, comparable to levels during the Soviet era. However, younger cohorts, exposed to the transition during their school years, experienced a rapid decline in educational mobility.
Social Cohesion through Community- based Development in Kyrgyzstan
Community-driven development (CDD) – a widely practiced tool by development donors and practitioners worldwide – strives to empower and develop communities by giving them joint control over aid allocations. This is expected to improve local development, local governance, and strengthen social cohesion. However, the empirical evidence for the third outcome is quite weak. This paper […]
Strengthening Food Security in Acute Crisis Settings: First Insights from North-east Nigeria
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 significant of developmental interventions in protracted crises.
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.
On the Return on Investment of Security Sector Assistance and Peacebuilding Assistance
Peacebuilding assistance and security sector assistance both aim at the same outcome – reductions in political violence. In this exploratory article, we show only the former has its desired impact, with security sector support apparently acting to increase violence.
Analysis, Design, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (ADMEL): Designing a Process for Learning from Employment for Stability Programming
Often, development organisations engage in “big push” ex post impact evaluations, where significant amounts of bespoke data are collected at the end of the programme. In this short paper, we argue that such funds can be used better by integrated an on-going learning component into standard ADME.
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.
Money can’t buy love but can it buy peace? Evidence from the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation (PEACE II)
While randomisation is often eschewed in bottom-up peacebuilding contexts in favour of more targeted programming, there is no guarantee that targeted spending gets to those who need it most. In this article, we discuss the apparent failure of one such targeted rollout – that of the PEACE II programmes in Ireland.
The Connection Between Social Cohesion and Personality: A Multilevel Study in the Kyrgyz Republic
Our study examines whether the social cohesion of the immediate living context is related to the strength of Big Five personality traits among individuals. Using data from a community survey of 6252 adults living in 30 rural sub-districts in the Kyrgyz Republic, where social cohesion is a sizable policy concern, we conduct a multilevel analysis of the relationship between sub-district cohesion and individual personality.