GlobalDev has partnered with the 2024 Oxford Forum for International Development to launch a special series on Conflict and Development. This series aims to scrutinize current manifestations of conflict, mechanisms of post-conflict reconstruction, and the roles of policy, diplomacy, and humanitarian endeavors in fostering resilience and rebuilding communities.

We invite you to draw upon both your research and the research you have access to, to write a blog article on the topic of conflict and development. Blog posts should be around 800 words with a focus on any of the following key points (the list is indicative and not exhaustive):

• Conflict-sensitive development approaches
• Peacebuilding and reconciliation efforts
• Humanitarian assistance in conflict zones
• Economic recovery and development in post-conflict settings
• Gender dynamics in conflict and development
• Environmental degradation and conflict
• The role of technology in conflict prevention and resolution
• Indigenous perspectives on conflict and development
• Youth engagement and empowerment in conflict-affected areas

GlobalDev looks for accessible contributions that make use of existing research to shed light on some of the most urgent policy challenges facing the world today. We do not publish extended abstracts of single research publications or highly technical content, and we very rarely accept op-ed styled contributions. We ask you to discuss and hyperlink as many research sources as appropriate to illuminate the policy challenge you decide to frame your contribution around.

Please read our style guide carefully before writing, and submit your article through our ‘Write for Us’ page. All questions should be submitted to editors.globaldevblog@gdn.int.

The post Call for Contributions: Conflict and Development appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

For research donors interested in international development, recent years have been packed with interesting discussions about how funding could or should change. What is interesting here is the idea that changing the way funding works can have an effect on equity, on opportunity, and indeed on research impact. In other words, many of these discussions contend that research funding could work much better to address development needs. To contribute to this debate, GlobalDev is partnering with the UK Collaborative on Development Research (UKCDR). We’re seeking to bring to the fore the critical knowledge that researchers and funders have generated on funding approaches in recent years. We hope to share existing evidence and evidence-informed opinions on this niche topic, to further illuminate the practice of donors of all kinds (international, national, private and public). We are open to contributions from both research funders and researchers. If you have additional questions you would like to ask (and answer), please write to us.

There are several areas of contention surrounding research funding approaches. To start with, research funders care increasingly about research impact on development policy and practice. Impact, however, is itself a topic of research, with no clear benchmark for how to use it in research funding decisions (which, by definition, happen before any impact is even foreseeable). What is the emphasis on impact doing to the research funding landscape? 

Another area of debate is how close funders should be to the realities their funding aims to illuminate, and how flexible they should be to account for developments on the ground. Can a balance be struck between ambition, scope and a good knowledge of local systems? How is the imperative of closeness to the development setting likely to affect the research funding landscape?

Much debate also continues on who development research funding is really meant for. Large Northern research funders often make it a condition for the funding to be managed by their own national institutions, and ‘helicopter research’ remains common. Most often, researchers in in low- and middle-income countries (irrespective of their qualifications and capacity) are still cornered in the subsidiary role of ‘local partners’ or targeted by ‘capacity building’ budgets. Is there a ‘nationalism’ in the development of research funding practices, and how does it affect research?

Finally, much of the research funded by international donors ends up behind paywalls, with so-called developed country[1] researchers being able to access it much more easily than anyone else. Can the increasing pressure to seriously pursue open-access policies help tackle the systemic inequities in development research?

Here, we’ve outlined just some of the complexities and controversies that arise around research funding approaches. Drawing on their own experience, we invite researchers and research funders to write a blog about the impact of funding approaches on research. Blog posts should be around 800 words with a focus on any of the following key points (the list is indicative and not exhaustive):

1. How, if at all, does an emphasis on research impact affect what research gets funded?

2. To what extent are so-called developing country[2] researchers involved in the funding process and can this be improved upon?

3. As a researcher or funder, can you envision a mechanism for making research funding less fragmented?

4. How can funding approaches better support so-called developing country researchers and help build a more equitable research landscape?

[1] So-called developed countries refer to high-income economies that a GNI per capita of $13,846 or more in 2022

[2] So called developing countries refer to low- and middle-income countries with a GNI per capita of $13,845 and less in 2022

The post Call for contributions: Can current research funding approaches make a difference? appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

To contribute to this debate, GlobalDev is partnering with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII) and LUCCC/START. We seek to bring to the fore not so much advocacy positions or policy options, but the sound and critical knowledge researchers have generated on all questions of climate finance, with the goal to illuminate foreseeable policy deliberation and ongoing public debates with the best possible evidence.

We invite you to draw on both your research and the research you have access to, to write a blog about the topic of funding mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage. Blog posts should be around 800 words with a focus on any of the following key points (the list is indicative and not exhaustive):

• Are the climate finance negotiations structured in a constructive way? What is impeding success and how can the process be improved?
• Does financing mitigation differ from financing adaptation? In what ways and with what implications?
• Can the climate finance gap be estimated? What are the different ways to do so, with what implications?   

• What are the possible timeframes for climate finance?
• What role is the private sector playing within climate finance? What further role can it play?
• How can access to climate finance be improved for vulnerable communities and countries?

• How does the global debate on climate finance look from the LDCs’ standpoint? 
• What are innovative sources for climate, and loss and damage, finance and how can they be accessed?
• How can loss and damage finance reach scale without decreasing climate finance?
• How do climate and loss and damage finance differ and what do they have in common? 
• What are ways to count finance for loss and damage finance?

GlobalDev looks for accessible contributions that make use of existing research to throw light on some of the most urgent policy challenges facing the world today. We do not publish extended abstracts of single research publications, highly technical content, or op-ed styled contributions. We ask you to discuss and hyperlink as many research sources as appropriate to illuminate the policy challenge you decide to frame your contribution around.

This blog series is organized in partnership with UNU-EHS and LUCCC/START. 

Drafts will be reviewed by a dedicated editorial panel comprising of GlobalDev’s Founding Editors and Sönke Kreft, Chief Climate Risk Strategist at UNU-EHS and Executive Director at MCII. 

Arianna Flores Corral, Communications Analyst at UNU-EHS, and Magdalena Mirwald, Project Associate at UNU-EHS and MCII will join the GlobalDev editorial team for the coordination of the debate.

Please read our style guide before writing and submit your article through our ‘Write for Us’ page. All questions should be submitted to editors.globaldevblog@gdn.int. 

The post Call for contributions: Debating Climate Finance – Funding Mitigation, Adaptation and Loss and Damage appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

Social mobility designates the movement of individuals or families to a better socioeconomic position, and it is considered to be the hope of economic development. However, this phenomenon has been understudied in developing countries leading to a real knowledge gap concerning social mobility in these regions.

GlobalDev now partners with UNU-WIDER to invite you to write a blog about social mobility. You are invited to write 800 words with a focus on any of the following key questions (the list is indicative and not exhaustive):

1. What do we know about social mobility in income, education, and occupation in developing countries? To what extent can we trust the evidence, and what else is missing? 
2. What are the data constraints for understanding social mobility in developing countries? Given the data constraints, are their alternate ways we can learn more? Going forward, what data should governments, national data agencies, funders, and researchers collect for us to understand mobility better?
3. Has social mobility among disadvantaged groups (by race, caste, ethnicity, gender) within developing countries improved over the years?
4. What policies can help improve social mobility in education, occupation, and income? What evidence do we have that these policies work? 
5. How strong is the role of the mother’s characteristics in the mobility of daughters and sons? 

Please read our one pager and style guide before writing and send us your article at editors.globaldevblog@gdn.int. 

GlobalDev looks for accessible contributions that make use of existing research to throw light on some of the most urgent policy challenges facing the world today. We do not publish extended abstracts of single research publications, or highly technical content. You are welcome to hyperlink as many research sources as you like in the text.

This blog series is organized in partnership with UNU- WIDER. Rahul Lahoti, Research Associate at UNU-WIDER, and Timothy Shipp, Communications Associate at UNU-WIDER will join the editorial panel as GlobalDev guest editors for this series.

The post Call for Contributions: Social Mobility appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

Are you a researcher interested in Biodiversity? GlobalDev is inviting you to write about biodiversity and development!

Please read our one pager and style guide before writing and send us your article at editors.globaldevblog@gdn.int.

The post Call for contributions: Biodiversity and Development appeared first on Globaldev Blog.