Poverty Reduction

Program Summary The United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) “Growth with Equity in Mindanao III” (GEM-3) is a five-year (2008 to 2012), $99 million dollar program that operates throughout Mindanao, but is specifically targeted to promote development activities in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and other conflict-affected areas of the region....

A team from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the US Institute of Peace (USIP) evaluated the programs and activities that USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) undertook in Colombia from 2007 to 2011....

This report is an assessment by the Americas Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) of the Plan de Consolidacion Integral de la Macarena (PCIM), a project that the government of Colombia is implementing in six municipalities.  First organized in August 2007, the PCIM is now a year and a half old, although it was not fully implemented until late that year....

There is increasing recognition that economically empowering women is essential both to realize women’s rights and to achieve broader development goals such as economic growth, poverty reduction, health, education and welfare. In the last five years, a broad range of organizations have committed themselves to the goal of women’s economic empowerment....

This Issue of Accord draws on multiple perspectives from across societies in both countries to explore comparative lessons and examine progress, building on analysis and recommendations from previous Accord publications on Liberia (Issue 1: 1996) and Sierra Leone (Issue 9: 2000) [see BOX 1]....

In 2011, Search For Common Ground conducted Focus Group Discussions with Rwandan youth to assess the content and impact of radio drama programs in the Livelihood Skills Development Project, funded by USAID. Discussions regarding the participants’ opinions of the radio story, whether they had listened to it as a training module or were listening to it for the first time, showed a positive impact on Rwandan youth....

  1. Defining Concepts and Techniques for Impact Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 2. Key Steps in Designing and Implementing Impact Evaluations ....

Mercy Corps recently undertook a study to explore the links between conflict and drought resilience among pastoralists in Southern Ethiopia. The research provides strong evidence of the contributions of Mercy Corps peacebuilding programming to pastoralists’ abilities to productively cope with and adapt to the recent drought....

Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PME) offers development organizations a host of opportunities for improving the performance of poverty alleviation programs and building the management capacity of local partners. While many agencies can evaluate poverty programs using outside “expert” approaches, few have the know-how and skills to employ PME approaches and fewer still are able to design and implement effective PME systems....

Livelihood failure can contribute to the emergence of conflict by weakening the social fabric of a society, making people resort to violence to obtain necessary resources, and increasing individuals' vulnerability to those with an interest in promoting conflict for political or economic gain....

Search for Common Ground conducted a survey to assess the baseline for an upcoming initiative in Nepal, ‘The Peacebuilding Initiative (TPI)’. The TPI program, which promotes consensus building among a variety of stakeholders, is comprised of two main components, dialogue with key stakeholders, youth and woman as well as a media program....

Final evaluation of a four year programme conducted by CARE Netherlands in North and South Sudan, the DRC and Burundi, taking a service provision, basic needs and good governance approach to peacebuilding. ...

The 2008 global spike in food prices that caused widespread riots and instability and the recent predictions of another global food crisis highlight the urgency of establishing sustainable food systems, especially in Africa. However, sustainable food systems can only be created if there are coherent and comprehensive approaches to land rights, land policy and land governance....

This case study is part of a USAID-funded research grant that examines the relationship between economic development and stability. In many parts of the world, Mercy Corps implements programs that combine economic development and peacebuilding. The Evaluation and Assessment of Poverty and Conflict Interventions project – implemented between July 2009 and December 2010 – had three main objectives: 1) to develop indicators and data collection tools that measure the impact of programs at the intersection of peacebuilding and economic development; 2) to field test these indicators and tools in three countries; and 3) to begin to assess several theories of change that inform Mercy Corps’ programs....

This case study is part of a USAID-funded research grant that examines the relationship between economic development and stability. In many parts of the world, Mercy Corps implements programs that combine economic development and peacebuilding. The Evaluation and Assessment of Poverty and Conflict Interventions project – implemented between July 2009 and December 2010 – had three main objectives: 1) to develop indicators and data collection tools that measure the impact of programs at the intersection of peacebuilding and economic development; 2) to field test these indicators and tools in three countries; and 3) to begin to assess several theories of change that inform Mercy Corps’ programs....

This case study is part of a USAID-funded research grant that looks at the relationship between economic development and stability. In many parts of the world, Mercy Corps implements programs that combine economic development and peacebuilding approaches....

As a response to the effects of the post-election violence in Kenya in December 2007, Search for Common Ground (SFCG) and Media Focus on Africa (MFA) developed and produced a TV and radio drama, The Team – an episodic series which asks a central question: can Kenyans find ways to put the past behind them in order to have a better future? The series presents a microcosm of Kenyan society in which members of a fictional football team, who come from different ethnic groups and social classes, are challenged to overcome their fears and biases so that they can see one another as individuals not as members of “the other.” The central metaphor for the players – and for Kenya – is: If they do not cooperate, they will not score goals, and they will lose....