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Development Cooperation under FragilityPart of Book Fragile Aid
Patricia Justino
Deputy Director
Professor Patricia Justino is a development economist who works at the interface between Development Economics and Political Science. She is a leading expert on political violence and development, and the co-founder and co-director of the Households in Conflict Network. She is currently Deputy Director at UNU-WIDER and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in Brighton, UK (on leave).
Professor Justino’s research focuses on the relationship between political violence, institutional transformation, governance and development outcomes. She has led major research programmes funded by the European Commission, the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). She is currently the director of a ESRC large grant project on the relationship between inequality, social trust and governance outcomes.
Professor Justino’s research has been published in leading international journals such as the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Research, and the World Bank Economic Review, and is the lead author of A Micro-Level Perspective on the Dynamics of Conflict, Violence and Development (Oxford University Press). She has held several advisory positions in major international organizations, including Action Aid, DFID, FAO, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UN Women, USAID, and the World Bank. She was the director of the MICROCON research programme and deputy director of the TAMNEAC Initial Training Network.
Professor Justino holds a MPhil in Economics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Economics from the University of London. She has held visiting positions at Harvard University (2007-09) and the European University Institute (2017), among others.
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Fragile AidESTIMATED FOR OPEN ACCESS ONLINE PUBLICATION ON 3 APRIL 2025 | An important question for the future of aid concerns its role in weak states and conflict contexts. While considerable research points to a mixed record of effectiveness in these contexts...
Working Paper
Social protection for Mozambique's elderlyThis study assesses the effectiveness of Mozambique's flagship social pension programme, the elderly component of the Programa de Subsídio Social Básico (PSSB). Focusing on three key criteria—programme targeting, reliability, and materiality—we...
Background Note
Implications of international financial architecture reform for fragile and conflict-affected statesDemand for reform of the international financial architecture (IFA) has accelerated in recent years and several initiatives took place in preparation for the UN Summit of the Future and the endorsement of the Pact of the Future during the 79th...
Working Paper
Social protection in times of conflictThis paper examines the role of social protection in mitigating the adverse effects of conflict on household welfare. We assess the impact of a graduation intervention linked to Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme, focusing on Amhara, a region...
Working Paper
Weathering challengesMozambique is highly vulnerable to climate change. It faces frequent cyclones, floods, and droughts while having limited revenue collection capacity and social protection programmes. This paper assesses the distributional effects of climate shocks on...
Working Paper
Rule of law in MozambiqueThis paper examines the state and evolution of the rule of law in Mozambique, focusing on key dimensions such as voice and political participation, judicial independence and accessibility, corruption, access to basic services, personal security, and...
Working Paper
Can social pensions for the elderly mitigate shocks?This study investigates the contribution of Mozambique’s flagship social pension programme, the Programa de Subsídio Social Básico, to building resilience against shocks. Applying a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach to bespoke survey data, we...
Working Paper
The gendered effects of climate shocks on labour and welfare in ZambiaThis paper exploits several waves of two major nationwide representative surveys to document the impacts of climate shocks on individuals and households in Zambia. We merge these datasets with historical precipitation and temperature data at the...
Working Paper
The role of social assistance in African crises: a systematic literature reviewThis systematic review examines the effectiveness of social assistance programmes in protecting households in Africa—a region highly vulnerable to climate change, conflict, and other shocks—during periods of crisis. Despite the significant increase...
Working Paper
Armed group taxation, municipal fishing, and environmental preservation in the Zamboanga Peninsula, PhilippinesThis paper analyses the impact of armed groups and their taxation practices on the municipal fishing sector of the Zamboanga Peninsula in Mindanao, Philippines. Leveraging novel qualitative and quantitative data, we find clear evidence of armed group...
Working Paper
Concealed costs: illicit economies and the erosion of the local tax base in ColombiaTax revenues are fundamental to state-building and development, particularly in the aftermath of conflict. Through the lens of the recent post-conflict experience of Colombia, this paper explores the challenges of increasing tax revenues amid...
Journal Article
Can preferences for redistribution explain the impact of austerity on political participation? Evidence from the UKMany European countries introduced austerity policies to control rising debt in the wake of the Great Recession of the late 2000s. Recent research suggests that austerity fuelled political polarization, instability, and populism in Europe. However...
Working Paper
Faraway, so close: the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war on political violence in Asian countriesWe show that the Russia–Ukraine-war-induced changes in the international price of wheat affected political violence in Asia. Using data from 13 countries and more than four million cell-level observations, we show that a higher wheat price increases...
Working Paper
Institutional trust in the time of coronaWe study how the stringency of policy measures to counter the COVID-19 pandemic affects individuals’ trust in formal institutions. Drawing on micro-level panel data from Germany spanning an 18-month period from the onset of the pandemic, we show that...
Working Paper
The legacy of coercive cotton cultivation in colonial MozambiqueWe examine the long-term impact of forced labour on individual risk behaviour and economic decisions. For that, we focus on a policy of coercive cotton cultivation enforced in colonial Mozambique between 1926 and 1961. We combine archival sources...
Working Paper
Inequality and voting in fragile countriesThe political consequences of economic inequality have been debated in academic and policy circles for centuries. The nature of this relationship seems highly dependent on specific contexts, with empirical studies showing mixed evidence on how...
Working Paper
Cultivating change: the long-term impact of forced labour in MozambiqueFollowing the abolition of slavery, various forms of compulsory labour were adopted by colonial powers to develop their economies. This paper analyses the contemporary consequences of compulsory cotton production—a forced labour system that operated...
Journal Article
Do the principles of effective development co-operation improve development outcomes?Elaborated in their current form in Busan in 2011, and reiterated in Geneva in 2022, the four Principles of Effective Development Co-operation comprise country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, and transparency and mutual...
Journal Article
Africa’s lockdown dilemmaAs the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, sub-Saharan African countries faced the dilemma of how to minimize viral transmission without adversely affecting the poor. This study proposes an index of lockdown readiness, taking into account housing conditions...
Working Paper
‘Ask not what your country can do for you’This paper investigates how persistent changes in trust caused by the Great Recession have affected how governments and citizens across Europe responded to the next global crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic.We show that increases in individualism and...
Journal Article
Improving parenting practices for early child developmentThis study investigates the short- and medium-term impact of a randomized group-based early child development program targeting parents of children aged 6–24 months in a poor, rural district of Rwanda. This low-intensity, short-duration, and low-cost...
Working Paper
Youth, violence, and sustaining peaceViolent conflicts affect the lives and livelihoods of almost one quarter of the world’s population. But the effects of violent conflict are not uniform. This study assesses the differential effects of violent conflict on young people’s education, job...
Working Paper
Aid and fragile statesAid is still an important feature of the development landscape. Fragile states, in particular, have the greatest development needs but due to their poor governance they are the least likely countries to use aid effectively to meet their development...
Working Paper
What drives parental investments in early childhood?This paper investigates the causal impact of a randomized video intervention designed to study the determinants of parental time investments in early childhood among low-income parents. We designed and screened a video that provided information and...
Working Paper
Welfare losses, preferences for redistribution, and political participationThis paper studies the effect of austerity on forms of political participation—including voting, appealing for reform, and peaceful protesting—and the role of preferences for redistribution in shaping the relationship between individual exposure to...
Working Paper
Do the effectiveness principles matter for development?The Principles of Effective Development Co-operation provide an important reference point for foreign aid and international development assistance. Although the principles—country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, and transparency...
Working Paper
The violent legacy of fascismWe still have limited knowledge about the long-term effects of fascism on European democracies. European countries experienced cycles of violence between the 1960s and 1980s. Can such violence be explained by legacies of mobilization during fascism...
Policy Brief
Development effectiveness in fragile contextsThis policy brief draws on the studies presented at the International Research Conference on the Effectiveness of Development Cooperation on 17–18 November 2022, in Brussels, Belgium, jointly organized by UNU-WIDER and the European Commission (DG...
Policy Brief
Building evidence around the effectiveness principlesThis policy brief draws on the studies presented at the International Research Conference on the Effectiveness of Development Cooperation on 17–18 November 2022, in Brussels, Belgium and jointly organized by UNU-WIDER and the European Commission (DG...
Journal Article
An exploration of the association between fuel subsidies and fuel riotsBetween 2005 and 2018, 41 countries had at least one riot directly associated with popular demand for fuel. We make use of a new international dataset on fuel riots to explore the effects of fuel prices and price regimes on fuel riots. In line with...
Working Paper
The social consequences of organized crime in ItalyOrganized crime affects security, development, and democracy worldwide, but not much is known about its social consequences. We study how exposure to the presence of organized crime groups shapes the social capital of Italian citizens, including...
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