The Benefits and Challenges of Randomized Control Trials in Conflict Environments: Reflections From a Scholar-Practitioner

Abstract

A greater proportion of international aid spending is targeted towards conflict-affected and fragile environments. Concurrently, donors have higher standards for evidence of what programs are effective. The combination of these two trends provides social psychologists with ample opportunity to understand whether and under what conditions some core theories, such as the contact hypothesis and social identity theory, apply in the field. However, rigorously evaluating the effectiveness of development programs in conflict environments, particularly peacebuilding programs, through Randomized Control Trials (RCTs), comes with numerous challenges. These include (1) insecurity and consistent access to populations; (2) ethics of randomization especially, during a humanitarian crisis; and (3) how to maintain the integrity of a program and research design within a changing context. As a result, implementers are often resistant to conducting RCTs. Based on my experience as a scholar-practitioner, I describe the benefits of RCTs that implementers may be unaware of, such as how RCTs help disentangle the impacts of the program from the changing context, as well as how to address the most common concerns of implementers. The hope is that by better understanding and addressing implementers' concerns, researchers will have more opportunities to rigorously test programs and theories, simultaneously improving theory and peacebuilding and development interventions globally.