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Research

The Centre conducts innovative and challenging research on key facets of African Politics, Development and Security. Researchers explore these areas theoretically, engaging critically with current debates to elucidate new ways of seeing and understanding. Scholars also investigate the nature and terrain of conflict, focusing on post-conflict reconstruction, poverty and inequality, resources and conflict in order to unpick the impacts and implications of political processes. The underlying concepts around which the Centre's research revolves are complex, sometimes contradictory and often contested. That is what makes the Centre's work dynamic, challenging and influential. Over many years, Centre staff have led large primary research for national governments and international institutions, among which the following are ongoing:

• Addressing the Balance of Burden in AIDS, Research Programme Consortium 2006-2011. This RPC is helping DFID to drive forward its strategy for assisting countries to tackle HIV and AIDS. The goal is to improve the effectiveness of efforts to reduce poverty and to achieve the MDGs by lessening people's vulnerability to HIV. The RPC covers: Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland and Uganda.
• Designing and conducting ILO-funded research into the role of conflict in the involvement and working conditions of children in the worst forms of child labour, involving research collaboration and capacity development, in terms of methodological and implementation design, field research, analysis and report writing, with universities and research institutions in Angola (Development Workshop), Senegal (University of Ziguinchor), Sierra Leone (CEDSA) and Uganda (University of Gulu) (2009-2011).
• Directing and implementing the DFID-funded Study of the Security, Justice and Support Resolution Needs of the Poor in Ethiopia, with the purpose of informing and supporting the Ethiopian Government's on-going reform processes within the security and justice sectors, to effectively meet the needs of poor people and communities (2008-2009).
• Conducting DFID- and Economic and Social Research Council  (ESRC)-funded research on community-driven development in relation to water governance and HIV/AIDS, in collaboration with institutions in Tanzania (University of Dar-es Salaam) and South Africa (African Institute for Community Driven Development - Khanya) (2004-2006).
• Designing and implementing DFID-funded research on the impact of using a sustainable livelihoods approach in development interventions, involving extensive research collaborations with a number of Higher Education institutions in Uganda (Makerere University), Tanzania (Mzumbe University) and South Africa (African Institute for Community - Driven Development - Khanya) (2001-2004).