UNU-WIDER

𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁-𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀.

Peace agreements, elections, and reconstruction plans matter. But they do not create functioning states overnight.

In many conflict-affected settings, authority, trust, service delivery, taxation, security, and local political order have already been reshaped during war. War destroys lives, communities, and institutions, but it can also create new forms of governance and social organization that persist long after fighting ends.
For peacebuilding and state-building, the challenge is to understand which wartime institutions and relationships survived, how civilians navigated and shaped them, and what can be built on, reformed, constrained, or dismantled.

⏳ This also requires more realistic time horizons. Building legitimate and functioning states is a long, uneven process that requires sustained commitment.

📖 A new open-access volume from UNU-WIDER and Oxford University Press, 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘓𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘝𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵, edited by Patricia Justino, brings together evidence from Colombia, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Somalia, the Middle East, and beyond.

🔗 Read the book: https://go.unu.edu/dzslx

Is the gender pay gap born at home?

We often link the gender pay gap to workplace factors, but new UNU-WIDER research suggests that family dynamics and sibling composition play a surprising role in shaping women’s economic futures.

In Uruguay, first-born women with younger brothers earn 2% less permanent income than those with only younger sisters.

Researchers suggest that traditional gender-based caregiving norms may influence these women to form families earlier, often at the expense of higher education and labour market participation. For these women, the motherhood penalty is more than twice as large, leading to 5% lower labour income in the five years following childbirth.

So what? To close the gender pay gap, we must look beyond the workplace. Policymakers can focus on early-life interventions, such as expanding access to high-quality childcare and promoting the equal sharing of caregiving responsibilities, to disrupt the transmission of traditional gender roles.

Read the full blog: https://go.unu.edu/kp7zo

UNU-WIDER will be in Quito, Ecuador, next week!

We are co-hosting the Regional Conference Rethinking Fiscal Policy in Latin America with partners Secretaría General Flacso and The London School of Economics and Political Science - LSE

The Conference will bring together bright minds from Latin America to share ideas, experiences and tools to evaluate how fiscal policies affect income distribution and support their redesign towards more just, efficient, and sustainable tax systems.

This event is part of the UNU-WIDER’s SOUTHMOD at 10 anniversary and will showcase advances in microsimulation models across Latin America, including ECUAMOD, COLMOD and PERUMOD, highlighting their role in supporting evidence-based policymaking across the region.

Following the conference, participants can join a hands-on SOUTHMOD-LAC training on 14–16 July to deepen their experience with microsimulation tools.

More about the Conference: https://go.unu.edu/4iwpt

𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘁!

Can social assistance protect households during crises?

UNU-WIDER research by Kalle Hirvonen,Patricia Justino,andRodrigo Oliveira,first released as a WIDER Working Paper and now published in 𝗢𝘅𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀, reviews causal evidence from across Africa on social assistance during climate shocks, conflict, pandemics, and displacement.
The review finds that social assistance can provide meaningful protection, helping households maintain consumption, improve food security, build savings, and protect assets.

But design matters.

Transfers are more effective when they are sufficiently large, predictable, regular, and timely. Cash-plus programmes also show promise when consumption support is combined with livelihood interventions, although evidence on broader livelihood diversification remains limited.

The review also highlights an important evidence gap: from more than 13,000 publications identified, only 16 met the criteria for credible causal evidence.

The takeaway: social assistance can help protect households in African crises, but impact depends on programme design, delivery, and crisis context.

🔗 Read the open-access WIDER Working Paper: https://go.unu.edu/Dvm3E
🔗 Oxford Development Studies: https://go.unu.edu/zWfgj