Research

Overview

My research seeks to understand the political economy of conflict and constraints to development in poor and fragile countries and to rigorously evaluate programs and policies designed to address these challenges. My main academic and policy research interests focus on four areas: (i) reducing poverty and promoting socioeconomic welfare and subjective wellbeing for the poor and the youth; (ii) the political economy of conflict, peacebuilding and development in FCV settings; (iii) strengthening state capacity in FCV through reforming the civil service and traditional institutions; and (iv) women’s empowerment and social, political, and economic inclusion.

The Evidence for Peace (E4P) Program—a knowledge creation program that focuses on issues of fragility, conflict and violence (FCV) I helped established in 2014 in World Bank’s Research Department. It’s main goal was to produce high quality data and evidence, with the view to providing evidence-based guide to policy action and projects’ mid-course correction, while addressing critical knowledge gaps identified in the WDRs 2012, 2013 and 2014 on gender and equality, on jobs and on risk and opportunity, respectively.

My research philosophy is to apply theories from economics and political science fields and to embed Randomized Control Trial (RCT) methods to address real-word problems. I have a large portfolio of work that includes innovative, multi-country RCTs embedded in actual development interventions, with the view to maximizing knowledge production, while addressing external validity issues. Below I describe my research and analytical work in support to operations.

Where I do research and analytical work:

Eric Mvukiyehe - Economist, World Bank Research Department - Research Map

Reducing poverty and promoting welfare and wellbeing for the poor and youth

This research seeks to understand the sources of poverty and vulnerability for the poor and youth in fragile contexts and investigates the effectiveness of strategies to unlocking their labor market potential and breaking poverty traps in a sustainable manner.

The political economy of conflict, peace-building and development in fragile states

This research focuses on understanding the causes, drivers and consequences of conflict in order to build more stable peace and prosperous societies. It covers information asymmetries, social dislocations, collective action and political participation, among other issues.

Strengthening state capacity in fragile states through reforming the civil service and traditional institutions

This research focuses on understanding state incapacity in fragile states and on strategies to improve public sector governance. It covers wide-ranging issues, including recruitment and deployment strategies, breaking patronage networks, etc.

Women’s empowerment and social, economic and political inclusion

This research focuses on understanding constraints women face in the labor market and public life. It investigates strategies to promote women’s entrepreneurship, social and political participation as well as norms-shifting interventions to address IPV and GBV. Read More

Leveraging existing studies for COVID-19 research to inform policy responses

This research leverages and builds on existing RCT studies in different countries to: (i) collect rapid, just in time information on exposure and impact of COVID-19 (and government response measures) on businesses and people’s livelihoods; and (ii) investigate the extent to which the original interventions may have helped mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic.