NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development grants funding to seven research projects in the ‘Open call for evidence-based policy advice and tools’ within the Applied Research Fund of the research program Security & Rule of Law in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings. This Open Call aims to (develop tools that) provide new evidence-based insights in the underlying assumptions, feasibility and/or impact of policies on, or approaches for, security and rule of law in fragile and conflict-affected settings and unlock the knowledge for practitioner organizations.
The projects granted funding cover a variety of innovative approaches towards challenges of inclusive and hybrid security and justice provision, coordination and measuring in Burundi, Lebanon Afghanistan, Central African Republic, DR Congo, Kenya, Mali, Tunisia, and Uganda. The size of each project is about 100,000 euros, added up with over 160,000 euros in cofunding for the seven projects. All the projects will have a duration of six months.
New applications for the Open call for evidence-based policy advice and tools can be submitted for the last assessment round of 6 November 2015, as well as for the Call for Evidence-Informed Ideas within the Applied Research Fund.
The following projects will receive funding:
- Enhancing Local Peace Committees - facilitating stakeholder debate on the strategic choices involved in transitional justice in Burundi and DR Congo | Dr M. van Leeuwen - Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen – The Netherlands. Local Peace Committees (LPCs) have become an important strategy to promote transitional justice, but it remains difficult to assure the involvement and leadership of local stakeholders. This project explores what the challenges are, and how local stakeholders can be better engaged in the strategic choices involved in supporting LPCs if decided to do so.
- Informing policy on plural security provision in urban contexts: Comparative insights from Lebanon, Kenya, and Tunisia | M.A. Price - Nederlands Instituut voor Internationale Betrekkingen Clingendael – The Netherlands. The project seeks to foster effective security and rule of law assistance by producing empirically-based, policy-relevant insights into how structures of local urban governance might interact with a plurality of local security providers in ways that deliver improved security outcomes for citizens.
- A Study of Monitoring and Evaluation Regimes and Statebuilding Capacity Building: the Case of Afghanistan | Mr K. Bush - University of York - UK. The project aims to provide evidence-based recommendations and guidelines on how to nurture and harness Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) capacities within and between national and international actors, and to link them explicitly and systematically to the efficiency and effectiveness of statebuilding capacities of fragile states in conflict-affected contexts.
- Promoting coherence, coordination and complementarity in international support to the ICGLR’s response to conflict in Burundi and the Central African Republic | Mr V. Hauck MA - European Centre for Development Policy Management – The Netherlands. This project will identify practical ways to improve the way international support reinforces regionally-driven efforts. It will conduct desk and field research using political economy and conflict sensitivity analysis. Key outputs will be a policy brief providing guidance for good practice, a research report, a stakeholders' workshop and related dissemination activities.
- Urban refugee protection in Lebanon's hybrid security system: a research and action agenda | Dr M.N. Abi Yaghi - Lebanon Support - Lebanon. This project will examine security measures applied in Lebanon in the context of the Syrian crisis and use evidence to inform policies on refugee protection and rule of law programming in hybrid security systems. The research will test the assumption that informal security actors fill a gap left by weak state institutions and include a comparative component with Jordan.
- Trialing tools for participatory gender analysis of conflict in Uganda | Dr C. Harris PhD - University of London - UK. There is limited understanding of how gender norms including both masculinities and femininities impact on conflict dynamics, including how they drive conflict, insecurity and exclusion. This project will develop a gender analysis of conflict methodology, building on existing best practices for participatory conflict analysis, academic methodologies and research on gender and conflict. Output will be a toolkit, a video and knowledge sharing events with stakeholders.
- Learning from Design in Mali: A Critical Review and M&E Framework for the CSO-led Human Security Strategy 2014-2015 | Dr D. Connolly - The Hague Institute for Global Justice – The Netherlands. Human Security (HS) adopts a people-centered approach to protect individuals by promoting peace and a holistic understanding of security, including legal, economic, personal, environmental and health dimensions. This project will address the main drivers and considerations for the HS strategy, and how the effects of this strategy can be measured on policy and practice? The project will employ a critical review as well as designing a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework for the HS strategy.
