The East African Resilience Innovation Hub

By 2025, poverty will primarily be centred in low-income, conflict and violence-affected African states. This project will invest in an East Africa research hub that will help resolve priority policy challenges related to violence, disaster, and conflict. Poverty, conflict, and development Promoting development and humanitarian responses in contexts of violent conflict is complex. It is made even more difficult because poverty rates in conflict-affected states are 20 points higher on average than their impoverished, but peaceful, counterparts. Countries facing the deepest challenges are those with the least capacity to develop their own solutions. To add to the problem, donors base their funding on information provided by outside consultants hired for short-term work. Local researchers for local solutions This project will provide funding to develop institutional capacity at the new Resilience Innovation Hub. The hub will explore several research streams to examine why interventions succeed or fail, and how individuals, communities, and states can cope with and overcome conflict and violence. Researchers will also look at how to support peacemaking processes and increase disaster prevention efforts. Their work will respond directly to policy demands and address critical knowledge gaps. The hub will share research results with other researchers, practitioners, the private sector, and policymakers. Project leadership The Resilience Innovation Hub will be housed within a consortium of three regional institutions: -The Consulting House, Nairobi -International Conference of the Great Lakes Region at the Levy Mwanawasa Regional Centre, Lusaka -Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism at the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, Addis Ababa This initiative will support innovative methodological approaches and open content. It will also strengthen coordination and analytic capacity through the use of new information and communication technologies.