The new, revised Counterinsurgency Field Manual has been published — and I’m pleased to see that it’s actually incorporated a lot of my work on governance and legitimacy (including a page-and-a-half quote from a report I wrote in 2012, and reference to my PhD thesis)! I think this is the first big-time citation of my […]
Read more...Category: Peace & Conflict
Beyond Lessons Learned: Reengaging the Public about Civilian Capabilities
By Robert D. Lamb ■ Originally published in Stability Operations 9, no. 1 (October 2013) ■ It is easy to find examples of successful stabilization and reconstruction projects: just ask any agency that has funded one and the companies or organizations that implemented it. Or ask those of us who have led independent evaluations of […]
Read more...Private-Sector Development in Fragile, Conflict-Affected, and Violent Countries (CSIS report)
By Robert D. Lamb, Sadika Hameed, and Kathryn Mixon ■ Countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) pose significant challenges for development, including private-sector development. FCV countries are characterized by some combination of weak governance and ineffective national institutions; armed groups, high violence, and intense conflict; limited economic and social growth potential; extreme inequities […]
Read more...MAC: Prototype of a Tool Linking Program Designs and Local Conditions
I spent a good part of last year on a UK-funded project on “absorptive capacity” — which I think too many people in the international development community still think of as “why can’t poor people spend our money better?” Our answer to that, though this research, was basically: “Because we keep asking them to do […]
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