May 2015

Research this month

Intractable peacebuilding: innovation and perseverance in the Israeli-Palestinian context

These programs’ expansion is a testament that a significant number of Israelis and Palestinians continue to value meaningful opportunities for bilateral engagement and peaceful change – even if it means swimming against the tide.

Intractable peacebuilding, from the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, examines Israeli-Palestinian civil society peacebuilding. Through the examples of four, well-established Israeli-Palestinian initiatives, the paper presents the case that even as progress towards peace stalls, there remains a vibrant grassroots peacebuilding movement.

The current state of peacebuilding programming and evidence

There are several intervention categories for which there is a high demand for more and better evidence and an absence or dearth of existing studies. These include SSR, GBV programmes, capacity building and reform of justice institutions, life skills and employment training, and public sector governance capacity building and reform.

The current state of peacebuilding programming and evidence, from the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, looks at which areas of peacebuilding are well served by evidence. The research finds that there is a pressing need for better evidence in security sector reform (SSR) and gender-based violence programmes.

Co-ownership and collaboration: insights into the measurement of impact and change from evidence-based community and state violence prevention partnerships

It is important for the multi-stakeholder partnerships to be consensus-based, process-oriented and involve a substantial investment from the outset to promote the construction and the maintenance of that partnership.

Co-ownership and Collaboration discusses processes for developing a monitoring and evaluation framework for crime and violence prevention programmes. The paper draws on three case studies of such projects in South Africa.

Syria: engaging with local actors to increase humanitarian outreach

The greatest challenge is to bring together a workable initiative to bridge the gap between the international community, government institutions, large humanitarian organisations and Syrian NGOs.

Syria: engaging with local actors to increase humanitarian outreach, from Wilton Park, is a short report on the local Syrian organisations providing humanitarian aid in the country. The paper covers some of the key challenges that this work faces, and provides some recommendations as to how local organisations can be better supported.

Conflict trends

Inclusive dialogue and explicit commitments to socioeconomic equality must be at the heart of societal changes across the North African region. While the world has already drawn many lessons from the Arab Spring, there is even more to be learned from these countries.

The latest edition of Conflict Trends from ACCORD focuses on the legacy of the Arab Spring. Including articles on the Tunisia's democratic transition, the future of the Western Sahara, and the role of the international community in Libya.

From the blog

The fractured response of humanitarian aid in Syria

By Amber Webb: Amber Webb provides an overview of the situation in different countries for refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria. Read more »