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Integrity has won a place on the Department for International Development (DFID)'s Governance and Security Framework Agreement. Key priorities in relation to this framework are to strengthen governance and security in fragile and conflict-affected countries, and to lead international action to empower girls and women:

“Effective governance is essential to achieve sustainable development results. There is considerable evidence that effective governance matters for development. People in poor countries need governments that make sure essential services are delivered and security is maintained; political systems that represent the whole population and not just the few; governments that are responsive to the demands of their citizens and work to prevent corruption.

Fragile and conflict affected states are furthest behind on the MDGs with only 10% of them on track to halve poverty and hunger by 2015. Fragility has significant economic and social costs. As well as the human tragedy, armed conflict costs Africa around $18bn per year. Making progress in fragile states to improve stability and advance MDG achievements is imperative to transform the lives of the world’s poor”.

Access to this framework will now enable us to bid for work under four lots:

Lot A – Public Sector Governance – Centre of government capacities; accountability and oversight mechanisms; civil service cadre capacities; public sector reform in decentralisation; the role of public service reform in building stability and links with local level peace-building; processes and structures for the development of inclusive policies and budgets, including the potential transformational impact on public governance of gender/social budgeting for reaching those more vulnerable in society.

Lot D – Security and Justice Reform – Security sector reform (SSR) strategies; capacity development; local ownership and sustainability; security and justice sector oversight and accountability; engaging state and non-state actors; measuring results and impact.

Lot E – Peace Building and State Building – Peace processes and reconciliation; longer-term political settlements; disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration (DDRR); state society relations; transitional justice, small arms and light weapons (SALW); management of natural resource concessions; social accountability and grievance mechanisms; violence against women and girls (VAWG); political settlements and processes; core state functions; jobs and basic services; gender equitable outcomes and women’s participation.

Lot F – Empowerment and Accountability – Diagnosis of empowerment and accountability issues including social and political-economy analysis; design of empowerment and accountability strategies and programmes at national and sub national level; funds, capacity building and technical support to civil society and other accountability organisations; informal and formal community level structures; access to and use of information and communications technology (ICT); citizens’ report cards, citizens’ juries and social audits; poor people’s access to information about services; building coalitions of change; empowerment and accountability interventions; empowerment and accountability monitoring and evaluation.

The contract will run for two years with an option to extend for two further periods of one year. If you are interested in working with Integrity through the Framework please send your CV to consultancy@integrityresearch.co.uk

Integrity and BBC Media Action jointly hosted a stakeholder convening in London to share learning and best practice on building research capacity in fragile and conflict-affected environments.

The convening was attended by representatives from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office, the Cabinet Office, the Stabilisation Unit, global polling organisation Gallup, international media NGO Internews, and public policy consultancy Aequitas.

The group identified some of the main challenges facing researchers in fragile environments as security, access to communities, lack of research infrastructure and respondent bias or politically motivated responses. But the collection of qualitative or quantitative information from these environments is not impossible, and there were several examples of good practice that the group shared. These included:  

• Using local partners, such as universities, national statistical agencies or local NGOs, to help the researcher accessdifficult to reach communities or populations.
• Building of local capacity through joint development of research plans with local researchers, typified by BBC Media Action’s work with local youth groups in Burma.
• Utilising a range of different research methodologies to triangulate information, and where possible verify information with multi-stakeholder groups. 
• Staying ethical, by utilising guidelines and professional codes of conduct such as those found in journalism and medical professions.

The convening was the second in an Integrity-led series investigating the broader challenges of conducting opinion polling and socio-economic research in fragile and conflict-affected states. We plan to hold more fora like this in the future and will share results.

Posted by Kate Ives, Head of Stakeholder Engagement