Most of the world’s poor live in fragile states, yet rigorous evidence on how to build peace and stability in conflict and crisis-affected contexts is still limited.

 

IPA’s Peace & Recovery Program (P&R) supports field experiments and related research in several broad areas:
  • Reducing violence and promoting peace
  • Reducing "fragility" (i.e. fostering state capability and institutions of decision-making)
  • Preventing, coping with, and recovering from crises (focusing on conflict, but also including non-conflict humanitarian crises such as COVID-19)
The program prioritizes studies that develop, illustrate, or test fundamental theories of peace, violence, and recovery, especially those that challenge common beliefs, pioneer innovative interventions, and produce evidence where little currently exists. Topics of study include forced displacement; peacebuilding; terrorism; state-supported violence and repression; ethnic and sectarian violence; protests and other collective action; and crisis prevention, response, and recovery. 
 
Through our competitive fund, P&R supports full randomized trials, pilot studies, exploratory and descriptive work, travel grants, and (in rare but deserving cases) quasi-experimental evaluations. The funding for the Peace & Recovery Program comes from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), which has approved £12m of UK Aid to IPA and our partners at J-PAL. Academic Leadership for the Peace & Recovery Program is provided by Dr. Chris Blattman and Dr. Betsy Levy Paluck.
 
Further information about the program's core research themes and questions can be found in our Guiding Principles and Funding Priorities.
Highlights
English
Publication
Building Women's Economic and Social Empowerment

Investing in women is said to be a key to development. In this view, providing education, a cow, or the ingredients for a business will result in great things: increases in income, empowerment,...

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Publication
Peace & Recovery Program Brief

In the coming decades, most of the poor will live in fragile states, yet rigorous evidence on how to build peace and stability is still limited. What helps communities heal and prosper after a...

English
Publication
Practicing Choices, Preventing Crime

While young adults in many contexts struggle to develop a positive identity or skills such as self-control, those who grow up in low-income or violent settings may have more at stake and receive...