The Politics of Poverty: Elites, Citizens and States. Findings from DFID-funded research on Governance and Fragile States Paper based on a stakeholder event, 21-22 June 2010
Abstract
To celebrate and learn from the work of 4 DFID research programmes on governance and fragile states (Citizenship, Accountability and Participation Programme; the Centre for the Future State; the Crisis States Research Centre; and the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity), a stake-holder event held on 21 and 22 June brought together researchers, DFID and international policymakers, practitioners and users of research.
This report aims to add to the findings from the research programmes, which have been published in the DFID synthesis paper The Politics of Poverty: Elites, Citizens and States, the insights that emerged from the combination of perspectives on the research at the event. Section 1 outlines briefly the journey of DFID-funded research in unpacking the concepts of governance and of politics in development, especially in 'fragile states'. Section 2 relates some of the challenges in connecting the worlds of research and policymaking, including the issue of dealing with complexity, and the tension between long-term research timeframes and the need felt by policy-makers and practitioners to 'know what to do differently on Monday morning'. Finally, in section 3, the report discusses what participants at the event felt the next generation of governance research questions should be to help us act more effectively in the field of development, and how they could be researched in a way that bridges the worlds of research, policy and practice.
Citation
12 pp.
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