African countries are now recognising the value of social protection programmes in reducing extreme poverty. This two-week course aims to give an in-depth understanding of how to develop social transfer programmes. ‘Designing and Implementing Social Transfer Programmes’ A course for policymakers, government officials and practitioners 27 July – 7 August 2015 / Cape Town, South Africa The Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI), the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and UNU-ME...
Ecuador’s new ‘Vice-Minister, Technical Secretary for the Eradication of Poverty’, Andrés Mideros Mora, is an MPP alumnus and current PhD fellow at UNU-MERIT. In this brief interview, we ask how his studies in Maastricht helped his career, about the background to his role, and what he wants to achieve. — How has your time in Maastricht helped you? AMM: Both the MPP and PhD programmes have been key to this position. My Master’s thesis was related to multidimensional povert...
Providing jobs may increase stability and avoid future violence, especially in low and middle-income countries. But do employment programmes really have this impact? We will study this question for a set of post-conflict countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. A new project co-run by UNU-MERIT will improve our understanding of the links between aid, development and stability in Afghanistan, Yemen and a range of African nations. The project will be led by the Hague Institute for Glob...
Refugees are set to make up a third of Lebanon’s population by late 2014. But the UN’s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is massively underfunded in the country, forcing it to do more with less. In this blog post, MPP Master’s student Alessandro Pezzano shares his first experiences from the field and gives an early insight into his research theme: the use of technology to improve aid effectiveness. Stuck at Istanbul airport, waiting for my transfer to Beirut, I receive an alarming text: t...
Stalling growth and high unemployment are not the only problems facing Bosnia & Herzegovina. To ensure its long-term sustainability, the country’s social protection system needs a major overhaul. The “Introduction to Social Protection in the Netherlands” study tour was part of a project run with the Ministries of Social Affairs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As part of this project, UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance provide technical assistance to improve the targeting of non-contributory c...
I started my PhD in 2008 as a mid-career professional, having already worked for several years in Iran and a few years in Afghanistan. Due to my previous experience, I realized that I wanted to continue working with children. I also wanted to work on Iran as I thought my local knowledge would be a key advantage for the study. Back then I was working for UNICEF, so I started my PhD as a part-time GPAC² fellow. Around the same time UNICEF introduced its global study on child poverty. I was working...
Will Syria break apart along sectarian lines? What are the origins of the conflict? What are the pros and cons of a US-led intervention? How is the war impacting individual lives? These were among the questions of a panel debate on the Syrian civil crisis at Maastricht University in October 2013. Panellists included Drs. Zina Nimeh and Lutz Krebs of UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance, as well as the former director of The Netherlands Institute in Damascus. Read the review by Diego Salama....