Social Cohesion Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa

1. Social Cohesion Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa Elisabeth King Cyrus Samii Columbia University

2. Synthetic Review • Systematic review on existing studies on a topic • Find out what works? • Goal of informing policy

3. Motivation • Studies suggest that social cohesion is important for development outcomes and for post-conflict peacebuilding. • For these results to be meaningful for policy we need to know… • Is social cohesion manipulable? Can you grow it?

4. Focus • Development, reconstruction, and peacebuilding interventions in sub-Saharan Africa aiming to generate social cohesion. • Interventions have beginning and end • Intervention types include: community-driven development, social funds and education or media programs.

5. What is social cohesion? • “affective bonds between citizens” (Chipkin and Ngqulunga 2008), “local patterns of cooperation” (Fearon et al 2009) and “the glue that bonds society together, promoting harmony, a sense of community, and a degree of commitment to promoting the common good” (Colletta et al 2001). • Social cohesion (rather than “social capital”) to emphasize that we are talking about attributes of groups

6. Social cohesion: inter-personal • Inter-personal: relations between different groupings of individuals • Behavioural measures of collective action, group membership & participation • Attitudinal measures of participants’ feelings of trust, harmony and solidarity with other community members.

7. Social cohesion: inter-group • Inter-group: relations across group lines • Behaviourally, the more socially cohesive the society, the less sub-group identities are likely to delimit networks of regular cooperation and exchange. • Attitudes of group members express feelings of trust, harmony and solidarity with members of other groups.

8. Questions What scientific evidence exists on the effectiveness of social cohesion interventions in Africa? 1. Minimum standards for inclusion 2. Types of interventions, measures & evaluation of effectiveness 3. Moving forward

9. Criteria for Inclusion Borrowed from Maryland Scientific Methods Scale (SMS)

10. Modified Criteria for Inclusion

11. Studies to Include

12. 8 Included interventions Interventions in: Benin, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa & Zambia

13. Effectiveness • “Effective” means that the intervention had a positive effect on social cohesion • √: effective. There is sufficient evidence to reject null hypothesis (that is ineffective) • X: ineffective or insufficient evidence. We can’t reject the null hypothesis (that is ineffective)

14. Effectiveness: inter-personal

15. Effectiveness: inter-group

16. Moving forward • Heterogeneity in findings • None of cells are full – evidence thin • Esp. inter-group • Inconsistency in outcome measures

17. Moving forward • If had to make summary judgment, CDD are potentially ineffective • Moving forward, want more on mechanisms, mediators. CDD too much on incentives & not enough on process/capacity-building?

18. Moving forward • If had to make summary judgment on curriculum, potentially effective. • Moving forward, what is it about curriculum that works? Mechanisms & mediators? Specific messages? Context in which message delivered? Manner in which message delivered?

19. Moving forward • Useful exercise • What we know & what we don’t know – help set a research agenda

20. Shukran Elisabeth King ek2570@columbia.edu Cyrus Samii cds81@columbia.edu *Pls send us your relevant studies to include*

25. Intervention Types & Outcomes