ISDC - International Security and Development Center

How did #COVID-lockdowns influence coping strategies in #Africa? That is the question Ghassan Baliki, Ani Todua, Dorothee Weiffen, Mekdim D. Regassa, Wolfgang Stojetz and Tilman Brück ask in a new journal article, now published in the Journal of African Economies. The article addresses the knowledge gap of how lockdown severity impacts economic behavior in low- and middle-income countries. To do so, the authors examine how lockdowns affected the use of savings, selling assets and reducing essential non-food expenditure in four African countries: Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda. Immediately after the introduction of (stricter) lockdown policies, the share of households who spend savings or sell assets declines. Instead, households reduce expenditure on non-food essential items, such as education and clothing. Under longer lockdowns, however, households change their response and spend their savings and sell their assets. These findings emphasize the importance of providing safety nets for poor households to deal with income shocks. Find ‘Effects of the Intensity and Duration of COVID-19 Lockdown Policies on the Use of Coping Strategies: Evidence from Four African Countries’ in the comments!

🖨️ Hot off the press: #HiCN Working Paper 421 - 'Conflict, Aspirations, and Women’s Empowerment: Household Survey Evidence from Farmer-Herder Conflicts in Nigeria' by Mulubrhan Amare, Lucía Carrillo, Katrina Kosec, and Jordan Kyle from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Using original survey data, the authors explore how conflict intensity impacts #WomensEmpowerment across three states in rural, southwestern Nigeria. The study shows that as climate-induced land degradation drives more frequent violent clashes, women experience significant shifts in their economic, social, and political behaviors. This underscores how #conflict not only affects women’s immediate livelihoods but also their long-term empowerment, as shifts in their aspirations and behaviors can influence their economic and political agency. Find out more in the full working paper! 👉 https://lnkd.in/g2bm3ERh

🔎 Studies of the impact of #war on human development are often siloed to specific research domains. This limits our ability to gain a comprehensive understanding. 🌉 To take a first step in bridging this gap, ISDC’s Tilman Brück and Ghassan Baliki (alongside their co-authors), have conducted an interdisciplinary review of the literature, which is now available #OpenAccess in World Development. 🏘️ The review spans 9 dimensions of #HumanDevelopment: health, schooling, livelihood and income, growth and investments, political institutions, migration and displacement, socio-psychological wellbeing and capital, water access, and food security. 💭 In the paper, the authors examine how the impacts on these dimensions may intertwine, and suggest plausible mechanisms. Through that, they identify critical research gaps and reveal that systematic empirical testing of how the impacts of war spread across sectors is severely lacking. 🏗️ By building a common language and overcoming disciplinary silos, we can achieve a deeper understanding of the widespread and lasting effects of war - which may ultimately help more effective, forward-looking policies to minimise these effects. Paola Vesco, Stefan Döring, Anneli Eriksson, Hanne Fjelde, Jonathan Hall, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Hannes Mueller, Christopher Rauh, Ida Rudolfsen, Ashok Swain, Phaidon Vassiliou, Johan von Schreeb, Nina von Uexkull, Håvard Hegre

Displacement has increased continuously over the last 12 years and the number of forcibly displaced persons has reached an unprecedented level. A new special issue, published in the Journal of Development Studies, focuses on the gender dimensions of this increasingly relevant crisis. We're highlighting two of the #OpenAccess papers in the special issue: 1️⃣ "Gender Dimensions of Forced Displacement: A Brief Review and Introduction to the Special Issue" by Tilman Brück, Lucia Hanmer, Jeni Klugman, and Diana Arango introduces the special issue. More than half of all forcibly displaced persons are girls or women; yet very little is known about how gender intersects the behavior and welfare of forced displacement. 2️⃣ In “The Double Burden of Female Protracted Displacement: Survey Evidence on Gendered Livelihoods in El Fasher, Darfur,” Wolfgang Stojetz and Tilman dive deeper into the subject matter based on data from 18,533 displaced and non-displaced individuals Sudan. They find a double burden for displaced women, facing adverse norms and institutions both at their place of origin and their destination. You can find links to both papers in the comments! 👇 #displacement #gender The World Bank UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency

As the dust settled on Fragile Lives 2024, we've collected our thoughts and some of our favourite pictures and put them in a conference recap. If you'd like to relive the highlights (or missed the conference altogether) then this is for you: https://lnkd.in/d_SPRpaE In the meantime, enjoy the 📸 ! Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ) IRI THESys - Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems Deutsche Stiftung Friedensforschung Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office #FragileLives #Conference #Blog

Please join us in welcoming Anne FARGEAS to ISDC! Starting this month, Anne has come on board as our Head of Finance and Administration. We are very excited that she is bringing her extensive experience in financial management in operations to the team. Anne holds a Master’s in Business Administration from NEOMA Business School and a Master’s in Structured Finance from Ecole des Ponts ParisTech in Paris. Thank you for being a part of ISDC, Anne! #NewJob

We are very happy to see this important report be published! There are deep links between poverty and conflict and understanding them is key to improving lives and livelihoods. ISDC is proud that our own Ghassan Baliki had the opportunity to contribute his expertise on poverty and conflict as a peer reviewer.

Check out University of Central Asia's video below to see this year's Life in Kyrgyzstan Conference! #LiK The LiK Conference is an established annual event convened each October in Bishkek. It brings together national and international experts from academia, government, development agencies, non-governmental organizations, media, and research institutions. Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ) The World Bank American University of Central Asia (AUCA) United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

Thank you, Ina Grimmer, for summarising your important contribution to #FragileLives 2024!

Congratulations to Nihon Hidankyo for winning the 2024 #NobelPeacePrize! Founded in 1956, Nihon Hidankyo has advocated for survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for decades and works on raising awareness about the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. As ISDC Director Tilman Brück puts it: "Nuclear weapons remain a massive threat to humanity's survival. The prize winner has shown how weapons of mass destruction shape even the lives of survivors. The grassroots perspective is very important - and such grassroots perspective is often rewarded by the Nobel Committee." #NobelPrize #NuclearWeapons