Peace and RecoveryNews & Blogs

PBS' Nova special The Violence Paradox, with Steven Pinker, explores evidence-based methods of reducing violence. They interview Political Scientist Salma Mousa and show her RCT in Iraq encouraging social contact between Christians and Muslims in post-ISIS Iraq with interfaith soccer teams. The study is one of several supported by IPA's Peace and Recovery Program.

Click below for the program. Note, the interview and segment on this research starts an hour and 35 minutes into the program

The Dhaka Tribune recaps a roundtable in which IPA Bangladesh Country Director, Dr. Mohammad Ashraful Haque, presented baseline findings of a survey on adolescent well-being, assessing mental, physical, and sexual/reproductive health as well as educational and economic development. The survey also noted the role of violence in the everyday lives of Dhaka adolescents, finding: 68% of married adolescents experience intimate partner violence, 82% of adolescents report experiencing corporal punishment at school, and 62% of female caregivers use physical punishment to discipline underage family...

The Economist reports on an experimental program aiming to reduce Chicago's murder rate by providing high-risk men with job training and therapy on de-escalating and avoiding violence. The program applies findings from an IPA study in Liberia on the impacts of cognitive behavioral therapy and cash grants to combat violence and crime among street youth.

[Note: article may be gated].

Devex reports on the Governance, Conflict, and Crime Initiative (GCCI), a joint IPA and J-PAL initiative that was granted funding through the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). GCCI's goal is to support RCTs piloted through IPA and J-PAL to generate much-needed evidence on solutions to conflict and corruption, particularly in fragile states. Devex outlines some of these pilot evaluations and key takeaways from a London event in early June.

New Haven, CT / Cambridge, MA – Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), two research centers working to support evidence-informed policymaking, were jointly awarded a grant of GBP£12 million (US$16 million) from the UK Department for International Development to generate new research on effective policies to promote peace and good governance, reduce crime, and support individuals and communities recovering from conflict.

The grant, approved in December 2016 and signed in August 2017, contributes to three research programs:

In the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog, Rachel Glennerster reviews what we know about how societies recover after war in light of IPA's new findings. She covers the new research, and why it's critical to understand how to heal societies after war.