Nic Cheeseman and Caryn Peiffer, drawing on their research as part of SOC-ACE (the Serious and Organized Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence research programme) published:

Deo Namwira, Fiona Nunan and Danielle Beswick published, Responding to civil war: fisheries as a safety net and lootable resource on Lake Tanganyika, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Maritime Studies.

Bizuneh Yimenu published, The political economy of fiscal transfers: the case of Ethiopia, Public Administration and Development

CEDAR (The Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability, and Representation) won the University of Birmingham’s Awards for Game-Changing Impact on ‘Public Policy and Law’. The team, led by Nic Cheeseman, received the prize for work to co-produce research that supports key policy actors in investing in democratic strategies, making pro-democracy interventions, addressing issues of youth and exclusion, and engaging with electoral commissions. 

Ellen Bomasang, IDD PGR, won Best Poster for her presentation of her research, ‘Interrogating Inequalities Experienced by Women of Colour in the US International Development Industry’, at the International Conference on Gender Research (ICGR) in Barcelona.

Sameen Ali provided expert commentary on the election in Pakistan in an article for The Review of Democracy: ‘Pakistan’s election and its implications’.

Nic Cheeseman appeared in a new BBC World Service documentary, Africa: The Battle Box, which is available on YouTube. He also attended its premiere. Nic also wrote a column for The Africa Report and took part in a Resistance Bureau seminar, both about drawing lessons from Senegal for how the opposition can win an unfair election.

CEDAR held a two-day workshop at UoB on the theory and practice of democratic resilience, and how researchers, democracy-promotion agencies, and donors, ‘do’ resilience in their work. Visitors came from around the globe, and contributing Birmingham colleagues came from all departments, including: Sonia Bussu, Mwita Chacha, Giuditta Fontana, Zenobia Ismail, Timea Nochta, Verena Brändle and Sameen Ali. The event is intended to be the first step in building a Community of Practice on this topic, and was supported by the School of Government Research Fund. Find out more about CEDAR here.

Paul Jackson attended the annual meeting of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration in New York. He is a member of this committee until next year. CEPA is the only standing committee of the UN that is not comprised of people nominated by their countries, meaning members are selected based on expertise. CEPA monitors progress toward Sustainable Development Goal no.16, with a focus on institutional effectiveness and conflict, and in his work on the committee Paul looks particularly at governance and conflict-affected space. He also serves on the technical advisory panel for the Peacebuilding Pillar of the SDG review. If you want to know more, get in touch!

Heather Marquette, IDD, and other SOC-ACE-affiliated researchers attended the launch of the Economic Crime Manifesto 2.0 led by the all-party parliamentary groups on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax, and Fair Business Banking.

Andrew Nickson, wrote an article for The Conversation, Deep-seated inequality is fuelling an escalation of violence across Latin America.

Bizuneh Yimenu was interviewed by BBC World Focus on Africa about recent clashes between the Amhara and Tigray regions in Northern Ethiopia. 

SOC-ACE saw its data featured in a report on extortion in Medellín by El Colombiano, one of the largest newspapers in Colombia. The data was from the programme’s Medellín demonstration project, led by Professors Christopher Blattman and Santiago Tobón. It also produced two briefing notes:

Claire Bracegirdle, IDD PGR, will be participating in the ‘Enquiring Minds’ exhibition at UoB during May 21-31. Her exhibit is called ‘Signs in Nature’ and is a collaboration with Ghanaian illustrator Muzeyi Yuleyi to visually represent some of her research from northern Ghana.

Kailing Xie, will be running a workshop at The Exchange on June 17 with members of the Critical China Studies Group at UoB: ‘Navigating the Politics of Gender and Sexuality in PRC, from Historical Insights to Contemporary Perspectives’. It will bring together distinguished and emerging researchers to discuss the most recent research on gender, sexuality, and women in China.

Sameen Ali was a guest on the In Pursuit of Development podcast, hosted by Dan Banik of University of Oslo. The episode was on ‘Administrative Capacity and Its Impact on Development in Pakistan’.

People, Power, Politics, the CEDAR podcast, (audio links here) released episodes presented by Licia Cianetti, Tim Haughton, and Petra Alderman, featuring external guests: