Research projects

Description: This project investigates the place of African states in the international system and seeks to understand what space exists for aid-dependent governments to exercise agency in relations with donors. In exploring these issues it focus on the case of Uganda's NRM regime which has enjoyed very substantial international support despite its increasingly authoritarian nature, destabilising regional policy and questionable human rights record.

Description: This project will examine every aspect of the 2011 elections, including the role of international donors, party financing, security personnel, ethnic politics and socio-cultural phenomena, in an attempt to assess whether it represents a step towards a consolidated, multiparty democracy for Uganda.

Description: A team of researchers at IDD has won EU funding for a project that could help transform international peacebuilding and statebuilding missions. Dr. Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, supervised by Professor Paul Jackson and Dr Heather Marquette, has begun a two-year Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship that will deepen understanding of 'local ownership'.

Description: This research examines the role of indicators focused on corruption within performance assessment frameworks (PAFs) for budget support, particularly in terms of their effectiveness in monitoring corruption at the macro-level, monitoring anti-corruption projects or institutions, and monitoring budget expenditures. It will be published as a U4 issues paper in early 2012.

Description: The Swahili Seas project is based in Gazi Bay, Kenya, and aims to link local coastal communities with global carbon trading to support the conservation of an area of mangrove forest in exchange for payments which will be used to support community development.

Description: This project analyses strategies used to create 'new' national identities after violent ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and Rwanda and explores their implications. Both states experienced civil wars ended by a military victory and the substantial defeat of armed opposition within national territory. Post conflict governments in both states expressed an intention to promote a new national identity, replacing and de-legitimising ethnicity.

University of Birmingham