Publication: Impact Evaluation of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Interventions
Loading...
Published
2013-06
ISSN
Date
2013-09-26
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The international community is paying increased attention to the 25 percent of the world's population that lives in fragile and conflict affected settings, acknowledging that these settings represent daunting development challenges. To deliver better results on the ground, it is necessary to improve the understanding of the impacts and effectiveness of development interventions operating in contexts of conflict and fragility. This paper argues that it is both possible and important to carry out impact evaluations even in settings of violent conflict, and it presents some examples from a collection of impact evaluations of conflict prevention and peacebuilding interventions. The paper examines the practices of impact evaluators in the peacebuilding sector to see how they address evaluation design, data collection, and conflict analysis. Finally, it argues that such evaluations are crucial for testing assumptions about how development interventions affect change -- the so-called "theory of change" -- which is important for understanding the results on the ground.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Gaarder, Marie; Annan, Jeannie. 2013. Impact Evaluation of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Interventions. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 6496. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15856 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Intergenerational Income Mobility around the World(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-09)This paper introduces a new global database with estimates of intergenerational income mobility for 87 countries, covering 84 percent of the world’s population. This marks a notable expansion of the cross-country evidence base on income mobility, particularly among low- and middle-income countries. The estimates indicate that the negative association between income mobility and inequality (known as the Great Gatsby Curve) continues to hold across this wider range of countries. The database also reveals a positive association between income mobility and national income per capita, suggesting that countries achieve higher levels of intergenerational mobility as they grow richer.Publication International Activity and Female Labor Participation: New Evidence for Services Firms in Developing Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-03)Using a cross-section of more than 33,000 services firms in 104 low- and middle-income countries from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys, this paper examines whether the female labor share premium of international firms relative to non-international firms in manufacturing also holds for services firms. Unlike the manufacturing sector, the paper finds a negative relationship between exporting and global value chain participation and the female labor share for services firms, while no relationship is found for importing or foreign ownership status, controlling for firm output, productivity, technology intensity, and fixed effects. The female labor share gap for exporters was larger before COVID-19, and the gap for global value chain participants is no longer significant after COVID-19. Controlling for sectoral relative wages between men and women does not change the findings in a smaller subsample of economies. Controlling for female top management and ownership reveals a female labor share gap for exporters, global value chain participants, and importers. Using an alternative estimator and data set confirms the female labor share gap in services firms. This may be attributed to the sectoral segregation between women and men, with women tending to pursue work opportunities in less skill- and export-intensive services sectors compared to men.Publication Children in Monetary Poor Households: Global, Regional, and Select National Trends in the Progress against Child Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-05)This paper presents the first estimates of extreme child poverty and child poverty using the World Bank’s recently revised international poverty lines. Using the international poverty line of $3.00 per day and the higher $8.30 per day poverty line (both expressed in 2021 purchasing power parity), the paper provides new results of the global and regional trends over 2014–24. The estimates show that 19.2 percent of children, approximately 412 million children, were living on less than $3.00 (2021 PPP) per day as of 2024, a reduction from 507 million children in 2014. This long-term decrease was slower than that for the general population. At the higher line of $8.30, the child poverty rate in 2024 was 65.9 percent, representing around 1.4 billion children, a drop from the 73.1 percent registered in 2014. At the regional level, the East Asia and Pacific and South Asia regions witnessed significant reductions in child poverty and extreme child poverty between 2014 and 2024, and the Europe and Central Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean regions showed reductions mostly in child poverty. In the same period, there was an increase in extreme child poverty in the Middle East and North Africa region. Sub-Saharan Africa experienced a “lost decade” of child poverty reduction between 2014 and 2024, increasing its concentration of global poverty. In 2024, Sub-Saharan Africa hosted more than three-quarters of children in extreme poor households (more than 311 million children), although its share of the global child population was around 23 percent. Country-level results show evidence of regional heterogeneity in progress against extreme child poverty.Publication Engineering Ukraine’s Wirtschaftswunder(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-29)As Ukraine emerges from the devastation of war, it faces a historic opportunity to engineer its own Wirtschaftswunder—a productivity-driven economic transformation akin to post-war West Germany. While investment-led growth may offer quick wins, it is efficiency, innovation, and institutional reform that will determine Ukraine’s long-term economic trajectory. Drawing on rich micro-level firm data spanning 25 years, this paper uncovers deep structural distortions that have suppressed creative destruction and productivity in Ukraine. It finds that business dynamism is on the decline, alongside rising market concentration among incumbent businesses, including low productivity state owned enterprises. To inform priorities for reviving business dynamism, this study develops a model of creative destruction drawing on Acemoglu et al. (2018) and Akcigit et al. (2021). The quantitative assessment highlights that policies that discipline entrenched incumbents are the bedrock for reviving business dynamism and engineer Ukraine’s Wirtschaftswunder. Policies targeting specific types of firms have limited efficacy when incumbents run wild.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication A Comparative Study of Ex-Combatant Reintegration in the African Great Lakes Region(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-07)This report is structured in three parts. Part one is a summary document, including: (i) an executive summary (ii) an introduction; (iii) a review of core concepts of reintegration that will be referred to in this study; (iv) a meta-analysis of reintegration process¬es in the Great Lakes Region (GLR) vis-à-vis the conceptual discussion; and (v) conclusions to the summary document. Part two (annex one) comprises an in-depth review and analysis of data on the reintegration process-es of ex-combatants across the GLR. Part three (annex two) is an in-depth analysis of community dynamics across the GLR. In brief, part one of the study is a meta-analytical and knowledge-focused piece that reflects more broadly on the detailed analysis of the datasets presented in annexes one and two, therefore, this part can be read as a freestanding report. However, it’s worth noting that any reading will benefit significantly from exploring the detailed findings in annexes one and two.Publication Improving Security in Violent Conflict Settings(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-11-01)Violent conflict is the multifaceted and cyclical problem that the international community is trying to grapple with. To date, there has been a clear hierarchy concerning what forms of violence are seen to matter most, with political violence that threatens the state taking pole position. In examining this argument, this paper sets out a number of issues relating to security and justice definitions. It will then examine some of the problems associated with placing conflict into a box-set typology: mass violence associated with war and genocide carries unique features but also spawns new challenges which are often being ignored. The paper will then examine in brief some of the measures used by communities, governmental actors and international partners in contending with violence before outlining some key conclusions and recommendations. In reading this paper two further points need be borne in mind: 1) this does not provide a comprehensive overview of violence and security - that is the role of the World Development Report (WDR) itself, and 2) this paper does not present fresh research, but more an overview, along with the other papers in the security-justice series, of some of the key issues confronting policy makers in the domain of security and development.Publication Measuring Violent Conflict in Micro-Level Surveys(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02)This paper reviews both current practices and common challenges of measuring the causes, functioning, and consequences of violent conflict at the micro-level. The authors review existing conflict -- and violence-related survey questionnaires, with a particular focus on the World Bank's Living Standard Measurement Surveys. Further, they discuss methodological challenges associated with empirical work in conflict-affected areas—such as operationalizing a definition of conflict, using the appropriate units of analysis, deciding on the timing of the survey, dealing with data biases and conducting surveys in an ethically sound manner—and propose ways to improve the usefulness of existing surveys to analyze conflict processes at the micro-level. Violent conflict, households, survey methods, questionnaire design.Publication The Post Conflict Fund(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-12-01)The Operations Evaluation Department (OED) is an independent unit within the World Bank. The goals of evaluation are to learn from experience, to provide an objective basis for assessing the results of the Bank’s work, and to provide accountability in the achievement of its objectives. This report on the Post-Conflict Fund (PCF) is one of twenty six case studies that have been prepared as source material for the second phase of OED’s independent evaluation of the Bank’s involvement in global programs. The program objective is to position the Bank through constructive engagement in conflict-affected countries where normal instruments and budget provisions cannot apply. The key findings are as follows : (i) a flexible instrument such as the PCF serves the needs that the Bank’s numerous instruments do not fulfill in conflict-affected countries; (ii) yet if the policy guidelines under which it operates are too flexible, and the DGF criteria are ambiguous and insufficiently enforced, the instrument can be less than fully effective; (iii)Programs can continue over several years without a results-based framework and strong monitoring and evaluation; (iv) as currently designed, the country-by-country approach of the program does not sufficiently generate broader cross-country lessons and does not exploit the program’s full potential to serve the Bank and its partners strategically; and (v) a global partnership program on conflict-affected countries with partners at the governance level might help the Bank, United Nations (UN) agencies, and other stakeholders to better respond to the transition from relief, to rehabilitation and reconstruction and development. Finally, this being an OED evaluation, it focuses primarily on the Bank’s strategic role and performance in playing up to its comparative advantage relative to other partners in each program.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Journey Ahead(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31)The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Fall 2024: Better Education for Stronger Growth(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-17)Economic growth in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) is likely to moderate from 3.5 percent in 2023 to 3.3 percent this year. This is significantly weaker than the 4.1 percent average growth in 2000-19. Growth this year is driven by expansionary fiscal policies and strong private consumption. External demand is less favorable because of weak economic expansion in major trading partners, like the European Union. Growth is likely to slow further in 2025, mostly because of the easing of expansion in the Russian Federation and Turkiye. This Europe and Central Asia Economic Update calls for a major overhaul of education systems across the region, particularly higher education, to unleash the talent needed to reinvigorate growth and boost convergence with high-income countries. Universities in the region suffer from poor management, outdated curricula, and inadequate funding and infrastructure. A mismatch between graduates' skills and the skills employers are seeking leads to wasted potential and contributes to the region's brain drain. Reversing the decline in the quality of education will require prioritizing improvements in teacher training, updated curricula, and investment in educational infrastructure. In higher education, reforms are needed to consolidate university systems, integrate them with research centers, and provide reskilling opportunities for adult workers.