ISDC - International Security and Development Center

The COVID-19 pandemic and food security: Micro-level evidence from Uganda, Tanzania, Sierra Leone and Mozambique - Food Security Food Security - The COVID-19 pandemic caused extensive food insecurity in low-income countries. However, most studies rely on aggregate-level exposure measures, overlooking individual-level...

📣 Out now #openaccess in Food Security: Half of all households in 4 African countries faced moderate-to-severe food insecurity early in the #COVID-19 #pandemic!
doi.org/10.1007/s125...
#foodsecurity #Africa
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We're very happy that Caitriona Dowd and Juan Vargas will be joining us on 30 September and 1 October to give the Fragile Lives 2026 keynote speeches 🎤!

If you are as excited to see these keynote speeches as we are, you're in luck! The call for papers is still open 👉 zerohunger.de/wp-content/u...

Call for papers: Fragile Lives 2026. The themes of interest include lives, livelihoods, farming, gender, migration, forced displacemnt, food security, nutrition, poverty, inequality, political behaviour, peacebuilding, demography, mental health, public health, climate change, shocks, coping strategies, and the impacts of policies and programs. Submit by 7 April 2026

Fragile Lives is returning to @isdcberlin.bsky.social Berlin on 30 September and 1 October 2026, once again inviting papers and sessions that analyze the micro-level causes, dynamics and consequences of crisis, insecurity, and violent conflict around the world.
isdc.org/call-for-pap...

🚨 Call for Papers: Fragile Lives 2026 📣
Fragile Lives is returning to Berlin on 30 September and 1 October 2026, and we're once again inviting papers and sessions!
See the full CfP and submit your work 👉 zerohunger.de/wp-content/u...

📢 11th DENeB PhD Workshop 📢

taking place on April 17, 2026, in Berlin, hosted at
@isdcberlin.bsky.social

We’re excited to welcome Karlijn Morsink as our keynote speaker!

Sponsored by
@Geo_X_

🔗 Apply by February 27, 2026
⬇️ Links in the comments! ⬇️

Is the humanitarian aid system at a breaking point 🌍 ?
We were thrilled to host Julia Steets, Director of GPPi, in Berlin, for a seminar on a topic that is affecting us all: "The end of humanitarian aid? Dealing with scarcity and power shifts."
More details: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

The European Network of Early Career Agricultural Economists is hosting an online seminar at 2pm CET on 21 January 2026, exploring the topic of “Agricultural Development and Conflict: Research Trends and Field Realities”

Learn more about the event and join online! sites.google.com/view/ageconm...

Can cash transfers (or other economic interventions) address intimate partner violence early in life?

Audrey pereira's first PhD paper tackles this question and is now available open access in Culture, Health & Sexuality!

Read the paper: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

🚨📃New article alert: Shocking social safety: Evidence from violence and drought in North-east Nigeria'
This paper examines the combined effects of conflict and climate shocks on the social safety nets of households in fragile settings.
👉Read full article: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

📢Closing date for submissions: 31 December 2025

Tilman Brück and Wolfgang Stojetz will co-host the 2026 Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference at @humboldtuni.bsky.social in Berlin on 22-24 June 2026.

👉 See the full call and submit your abstract: lnkd.in/g_aM9U6

⏳ Only two days left to submit your papers for the special issue of the Journal of Development Effectiveness on the effects of peacebuilding approaches!

👉 Learn more and submit your manuscript: think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...

The deadline is 12 December 2025.

Read the full study in the @UNU-WIDER Working Paper series: https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/jobs-and-livelihoods-programming-economic-and-social-stability-fragile-places

📢 New Working Paper: Jobs and Livelihoods for Stability in Fragile Places 🚨
Tatiana Orozco García and Neil Ferguson evaluate support to SMEs in Tunisia and Somalia, implemented by Stichting SPARK to develop demand-driven local growth.
Read full study @unu-wider.bsky.social: shorturl.at/8kEFz

How can we tackle collective & interpersonal violence in fragile settings? At #FragileLives hosted by @isdcberlin.bsky.social UNICEF Evaluation's, Amber Peterman shared insights on integrated, evidence-based approaches. 👉 zerohunger.de/fragile-live...

We're looking for a Junior Researcher (f/m/d) to join our Behavior Research Program.

If you have strong skills in statistical analysis, experience working in or on fragile and transition settings, and a social science master's degree, we want to hear from you! isdc.jobs.personio.de/job/2251639?...

Audrey holds a Master of Science in Public Health in health systems and economics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a PhD in Public Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Welcome to the team!

Before joining us, she worked at the UNICEF Evaluation Office, the UNICEF Office of Research, and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). She has also consulted for FAO, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and The World Bank.

We are thrilled to have Audrey Pereira join ISDC as a Senior Researcher in our Welfare Research Program.

Audrey brings deep expertise in social protection, gender, and child- and youth-wellbeing, with a focus on developing contexts.

The webinar will take place on 3 July 2025 at 9:00 am CEST. Please register via email to
brac@seebohm.berlin.

The center of the webinar is the recent BRAC Failure Report, from which co-author Kazi Ashfaqul will give unusual insights into past BRAC’s past mistakes and their learnings. ISDC Director Tilman Brück will contribute his expertise.

What should we do when projects fail?

There is an incentive to ignore mistakes, especially when the political or social context is regards economic development cooperation sceptically. Despite that, there is large potential to increase effectiveness through open analysis.

I look forward to this week's dialogue on a (sadly) timely topic: Sudden aid cuts @langlotzsarah.bsky.social @isdcberlin.bsky.social @adreher.bsky.social @kiel.institute @uni-goettingen.de @fuchsa.bsky.social

In Helsinki for the UNU-WIDER conference where I’ll present @isdcberlin.bsky.social work on the long term impacts of conflict on Syrian refugees in Jordan.

EADI/IOB 2026: Call for Panels: Shaping Sustainable Futures: Global Challenges, (G)local solutions? 29 June – 2 July 2026, Institute of Development Policy, University of Antwerp, Belgium. Deadline for submissions: 7 September 2025

📣 The call for panels for our flagship event, the EADI/IOB general conference is out!

📅 Submit by 7 September 2025

www.eadi.org/eadi-events/...

Happening this week!

Sign up via the link 👇

Very happy that Ghassan Baliki and Sahar El Hachem will talk about our ongoing work with FCDO (and more) in a 3D Seminar on 22 May!

Register today so you don't miss this insightful event! 👇 listserv.gwdg.de/mailman/list...

Call for Papers: Fragile Lives 2025 HiCN Workshop – HiCN 30 September - 1 October 2025 Berlin, Germany Every year, Fragile Lives convenes international experts from academia, policy, and practice on the use of rigorou

📣The Call for Papers and Sessions of the 2nd international expert conference Fragile Lives on 30 September and 1 October 2025 at Humboldt-University of Berlin in Germany is about to close. 1/6
#callforpapers #Berlin #HiCN #FragileLives @isdcberlin.bsky.social

Call for Papers: Fragile Lives 2025 HiCN Workshop – ISDC 30 September - 1 October 2025 Berlin, Germany Every year, Fragile Lives convenes international experts from academia, policy, and practice on the use of rigorou

Call for Papers: Fragile Lives 2025 HiCN Workshop

📆30 September – 1 October 2025
Fragile Lives 2025 & the 21st HiCN Annual Workshop will review the role of gender & institutions in the formation, functioning & impacts of fragility, insecurity, conflict & emergency.

Mutual Knowledge of Social Norms and Political Behavior – ISDC Social norms are crucial drivers of human behavior. However, misperceptions of others’ opinions may sustain norms and conforming behavior even if a majority opp

IZA Working Paper 👇!
isdc.org/publications...

However, when mutual knowledge was created, engagement increased significantly. Further experiments show this is due to fear of social punishment: people act differently when they know others are on the same page.

This paper is about a field experiment with 5,201 women in Kyrgyzstan, exploring whether making social norms mutual knowledge influences behavior. Evidence demonstrates that just giving info on societal support for female activism didn’t change behavior.