Event

African Peacebuilding and Developmental Dynamics (APDD) Event

2025 International Peace Researchers Association (IPRA) Biennial Conference

The African Peacebuilding and Developmental Dynamics (APPD) program’s sponsored panel, “Negotiating Peace and Social Justice Through Non-Violent Pathways: Understanding African Values and Practices,” at the 2025 Biennial International Peace Researchers Association (IPRA) conference, featured alumni of the APPD (formerly the APN and Next Gen). During the plenary panel on Friday, November 7, panelists highlighted diverse traditional Indigenous spiritual, relational, and cultural knowledge from across the continent, emphasizing their importance in peacebuilding. Dr. Thembani Dube (APN IRF 2024), a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Stellenbosch, presented the paper, “‘Revisiting Gukurahundi’: Ethnic marginalization, state-led reconciliation, and …

African Peacebuilding and Developmental Dynamics (APDD) African Peacebuilding Network (APN) Event

African University Seminar Series Nigeria (AUSS-NG) Event Summary

The African University Seminar Series Nigeria (AUSS-NG) held its inaugural seminar at the University of Abuja in Abuja, Nigeria, from September 27 to 28, 2025. Funded by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC)’s African Peacebuilding Network (APN) and Next Generation (Next Gen) Social Sciences in Africa Program and hosted by the Department of History & Diplomatic Studies, University of Abuja, the seminar assembled 26 APN and Next Gen fellows and alumni for a one-and-a-half-day convening on contemplating and “Reimagining Peace in Nigeria: Resilience, Reconciliation, Social Justice and Everyday Politics.” An initiative by the APN and Next Gen Program to fund

African Peacebuilding and Developmental Dynamics (APDD) African Peacebuilding Network (APN) Event News

Event Report: ASAA 2025 — Developing African Frameworks for Navigating Peace Vulnerabilities in an Emerging Post-COVID World Order

The African Peacebuilding and Developmental Dynamics (APDD) sponsored a panel at the African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) 2025 Conference, held on September 25, 2025, at the University of Cape Verde. Under the theme “Developing African Frameworks for Navigating Peace Vulnerabilities in an Emerging Post-COVID World Order,” the panel brought together fellows to examine how African actors are re-imagining resilience and peacebuilding in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Titilope F. Ajayi (Institute for Security Studies / Next Gen 2017 & 2019, APN IRF 2018) who moderated the session welcomed participants and introduced the APN and Next Gen’s mission

African Peacebuilding Network (APN) Event

Charting a Path to Stability: SSRC–IPSS Dialogue on Political Transitions in the Horn of Africa

The Social Science Research Council’s (SSRC) African Peacebuilding Network and Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa (APN and Next Gen) program, in collaboration with the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) of Addis Ababa University, co-hosted a high-level policy dialogue titled “Challenges to Political Transitions and Strategies for Regional Peace and Stability in the Horn of Africa,” held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from June 27–28, 2025. The dialogue convened senior policymakers, African Union (AU) and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) representatives, including H.E. Amb. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, civil society actors, scholars (including SSRC’s APN and Next Gen fellows), and

African Peacebuilding Network (APN) Event

Emerging Threats to Environmental Justice in Africa: Insights from SSRC’s APN and Next Gen Panel

Held as part of the 2025 Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) Annual Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya (June 23-25), the SSRC’s APN and Next Gen Program brought together six fellows to explore how environmental injustice is shaped by inequality, climate change, and conflict in various African contexts on a program-sponsored panel titled ‘Inequality, Climate Change and Conflict: Emerging Challenges for Environmental Justice in Africa’. Framed within the broader ACUNS theme of “Environmental Multilateralism and Human Development,” the panel session spotlighted African-led scholarship and grounded research findings across Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Ghana, highlighting the continent’s disproportionate vulnerability to

Event News

Virtual Lecture | Repeated Evaluation Can Make Better Policy: The Case of Summer Youth Employment Programs

Virtual Lecture | May 22, 2:00 PM Eastern, via Zoom

Researchers often pursue ideas because they are novel and innovative. Breaking new ground is clearly important, and being “first” can help a paper get published. But the drive to be new can also push researchers away from the kinds of iterative research questions that help decision-makers implement effective policy (and towards surprising results that can be hard to replicate). This talk will tell the story of a policy-research partnership that started with a new and surprising finding—that summer jobs programs don’t actually help future youth employment, but do reduce violence—then kept iterating to explore how, why, and for whom. The result highlights what can come from repeated evaluation: an evidence base that is more convincing, illuminating, and practical than any single study can be.

Event

Repeated Evaluation Can Make Better Policy: The Case of Summer Youth Employment Programs

Virtual Lecture | May 22, 2:00 PM Eastern, via Zoom

Researchers often pursue ideas because they are novel and innovative. Breaking new ground is clearly important, and being “first” can help a paper get published. But the drive to be new can also push researchers away from the kinds of iterative research questions that help decision-makers implement effective policy (and towards surprising results that can be hard to replicate). This talk will tell the story of a policy-research partnership that started with a new and surprising finding—that summer jobs programs don’t actually help future youth employment, but do reduce violence—then kept iterating to explore how, why, and for whom. The result highlights what can come from repeated evaluation: an evidence base that is more convincing, illuminating, and practical than any single study can be.

Event News

Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence

Virtual Lecture | April 24, 3:00 PM Eastern, via Zoom
What if everything we understood about gun violence was wrong? In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago to research two big questions: Why does gun violence happen, and is there anything we can do about it? Almost two decades later, the answers aren’t what he expected. This seminar describes how and why everyone’s conventional wisdom about gun violence is at best incomplete, how behavioral economics gives us a better way to understand the problem, and how a sustained partnership between the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the city of Chicago have helped identify and scale new solutions.

Event

Globalization, Trade and Labor, and the Distribution of Wealth and Resources in Japan and the United States

Recent elections in the United States, Japan, and Europe have shown public dissatisfaction with global society and the economy. Commentaries on United States electoral politics have argued that globalization’s impact on the domestic economy—most significantly, the offshoring of manufacturing and subsequent loss of well-paying manufacturing jobs—was the key factor in shaping a polarized society, characterized by a large underclass that has not shared in economic prosperity. In Japan, although political polarization has not been as extreme, the last several decades have seen an increased precarity of labor. In this 2025 session of the Abe Fellows Global Forum, four leading experts

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