The expertise of the Institute for Security Studies’ African Futures Project has been sought for an innovative programme that will inform policy to help build effective institutions, decrease poverty and reduce violence in fragile and conflict-affected societies. The ISS is one of only two African organisations partnering with the University of Edinburgh’s Global Justice Academy (GJA) on the new political settlements programme.

The four-year study will investigate the balance of power and interests in conflict-affected states. Different types of political settlements will be examined, along with the role of locally driven strategies and external actors.

With its expertise in quantitative research and forecasting on conflict trends and state fragility, the African Futures Project will map political settlements against development trajectories in Africa. The inclusion of the ISS in the programme shows it is at the forefront of informing human security policy in Africa and globally.

‘We are very excited to have ISS as a partner, as part of an impressive global team of organisations who bring a combined academic, policy and practice expertise’, said Christine Bell, Programme Director at GJA. ‘Through the collaboration of ISS we hope we can pioneer innovative responses to what makes peace processes succeed or fail, and how we might better empirically define and assess these processes in ways that people in conflict situations relate to’.

The programme is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID), and the results will help DFID improve its interventions in fragile and conflict-affected states.

‘Little empirical work has been undertaken to investigate if there is a link between durable political settlements and improvements in human development, including security’ said Jakkie Cilliers, Executive Director of the ISS. ‘We are confident that the African Futures Project will produce useful insights for policy makers’. Bell agrees; ‘ISS brings to the programme its highly valued expertise of its African Futures work, and its innovative and robust approach to measuring social change within countries’.

The African Futures Project will undertake a scoping study and identify datasets to pinpoint how to measure improvements in development that can be associated with concrete political settlements, including peace processes. Research will focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Liberia as pilot countries. It will also convene.

credit link:  http://www.issafrica.org/iss-spotlight/new-approaches-to-balancing-power-in-conflict-affected-states

The article was first published by The Institute for Security Studies (http://www.issafrica.org) and is republished with permission  granted to www.oasesnews.com