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Transitional Justice Institute's (TJI) work on gender, conflict and transition demonstrates remarkable international impact, showing effects and benefits to institutional norms and policies, civil society positioning and legal enforcement at the state level. Knowledge transfer provided by TJI research has influenced policy and legal change in the regulation of gender norms in conflict and post-conflict settings. Debates triggered by TJI scholarly outputs have shaped policy agendas and critical responses to them. The impact is regional, national and international.
Dr Toby Ord is the founder of an international organisation called Giving What We Can. This organization is dedicated to the fight against poverty in the developing world. Its members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to aid and to direct their giving to the organisations that have a demonstrated ability to use their incomes most efficiently. The impetus for the founding of the organization was provided by Dr Ord's early work in ethics. He subsequently undertook additional research into how his ethical ideas could be put into practice. The fruits both of this research and of related research by other Oxford philosophers appear on the organisation's website, where, through a combination of pure and applied philosophy, the ethical case for making the pledge is urged. The arguments advanced have proved to be extremely persuasive: many people have been moved by them, and to great effect. The organisation has over 326 members, from seventeen countries, who together have pledged to give over US $130,000,000 to charity.
Research conducted by the Centre for the Study of Poverty and Social Justice (CSPSJ) led to a new way of assessing child poverty in developing countries. This novel method (termed the Bristol Approach) resulted in the United Nations General Assembly's adoption, for the first time, of an international definition of child poverty (2006). It also underpinned UNICEFs Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities (2008-10), which was run in over 50 countries. In the last ten years, the CSPSJ's work has put child poverty at the centre of international social and public policy debates. Its researchers have advised governments and international agencies on devising anti-poverty strategies and programmes that specifically meet the needs of children, and have significantly influenced the way child poverty is studied around the world. The Centre has developed academic and professional training courses for organisations like UNICEF on the issues of children's rights and child-poverty. Our work has also spurred NGOs such as Save the Children to develop their own child-development indices, and so has had a direct and profound impact on the lives of poor children around the planet.
Research at Oxford by members of the International Growth Centre (IGC), funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID), has played an important role in shaping two key areas of monetary and exchange rate policy formulation in East Africa.
Research on food prices and inflation in Tanzania is providing the technical basis for the discussions of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of Tanzania, and has contributed to current thinking by the African Development Bank (ADB) on policy responses to global food price volatility in East Africa.
Work on exchange rate policy has helped shape the Draft Protocol on East African Monetary Union currently being negotiated between the East African Community (EAC) partner states (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi).
Reintegrating ex-combatants after war is critical to the success of peacebuilding and it is one of the top priorities for the United Nations during post-war transition. Research on ex-combatant disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) by Dr Jaremey McMullin was the basis for three major policy reports for the UN on DDR in Liberia and Burundi. These reports have had substantial impacts on UN thinking about DDR and on programs and policies for ex-combatants after war. DDR Senior Managers at the UN continue to use the reports to discuss program innovations and lessons learned that Dr McMullin identified and analysed, and they use his reports as a model for the kind of assessment the UN seeks to commission for subsequent peacekeeping and peacebuilding programs. One of the reports also led to a multi-million dollar program for additional support for ex-combatants in Liberia in 2009 and influenced the contours and scope of that program.
This research, commissioned by UNICEF between September 2010 and December 2012, and led by Professor Mario Novelli, University of Sussex, examines the role of education in peacebuilding in conflict-affected states. The findings were directly employed by UNICEF to create a Dutch government-funded, four-year, $200 million, Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme (PBEA) now operating in 13 countries (2012-16). The findings successfully challenged the UN's approach to peacebuilding, which prioritises investment in security, democracy and economic reforms, making a strong case for greater investment in education programming in post-conflict settings. The findings form part of a paper commissioned by the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), where it is stated that the social sectors, including education and health, require a bigger role in peacebuilding operations. Both the UNICEF PBEA programme and the shift in UN Peacebuilding strategy are likely to make a positive long-term impact on children's and adolescents' lives in conflict contexts.
Through training courses, briefings and written reports, Justin Willis and Chris Vaughan have influenced policy-making and contributed to professional development in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Department for International Development (DfID), and Ministry of Defence (MoD), as well as other governments. They have had similar impacts on NGOs and multilateral bodies, including the African Union and agencies of the United Nations. In so doing, they have contributed to innovation and entrepreneurial activity through the expansion of a non-governmental organisation, the Rift Valley Institute (RVI).
A key challenge for Western policy makers and legal practitioners in formulating justice and security responses to mass atrocity in the African Great Lakes region is to understand the political, social and cultural causes of conflict, and the manner in which past conflicts can be resolved and potential future conflicts prevented. Phil Clark's research sheds much-needed light on these issues, and assesses the nature and impact of both local and international transitional justice responses. This research has prompted his active engagement with international judicial processes and debates on aid policy, encouraging international actors to be more aware of local dynamics around conflict and justice, with the wider aim of maintaining the vulnerable stability of post-conflict nations in Africa.